


rise up like the sun

by Arbryna



Category: Lost Girl
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-10
Updated: 2015-03-06
Packaged: 2018-03-04 01:32:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 25
Words: 47,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2904395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arbryna/pseuds/Arbryna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s not a conscious decision; Bo’s not even sure that the words have come from her own mouth until all eyes in the square turn to her. Murmurs of disbelief ripple through the crowd and a cold, numb feeling settles in Bo’s stomach. What has she done? </p><p>Then the girl turns, wiping at the tears on her coal black cheeks. Her eyes seek out Bo’s, hope glowing red like hot coals, and whether Bo meant to speak up or not, there’s no going back now. </p><p>“I volunteer as tribute,” Bo repeats defiantly, her voice steady even if nothing else is. </p><p>The murmurs fade into silent shock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title and lyrics taken from "Be Still", by The Killers.

Legends say that the Fae used to rule over themselves. They kept their existence a secret, preyed on humans in the shadows, enjoyed lavish lifestyles at the top of a food chain most of the world never knew existed.

The Vaccine changed everything.

A long time ago, long enough that even most Fae have started to forget, a human scientist developed a vaccine that would bind a person‘s chi to their body, making them immune to most Fae powers. It didn‘t take long for the humans to administer the Vaccine to every citizen—or, at least, to any citizen who could afford it.

War came soon after, on a scale that had not been seen for centuries. Battlefields were littered with bodies of Fae and human alike, left to rot while the war continued to rage elsewhere. The Fae still had the advantages of heightened strength and longer lifespans, but they had grown too dependent on their powers. While the humans were developing bigger and deadlier technology, the Fae were learning to fight all over again.

When the dust settled, the humans stood victorious. They established the Capitol, from which they ruled over the outlying districts.

The Fae were registered and sorted by their powers, shipped off to one of thirteen districts. The most dangerous—the ones whose powers could still affect humans indirectly, like fire fae—were imprisoned, tortured, interrogated, and ultimately executed. The rest lived in poverty, serving the Capitol or dying if they refused. Unable to feed from humans, the Fae were forced to break their own laws, relying on one another for sustenance. For the first time in recorded history, hunger became the number one killer of the Fae, as many were too stubborn to abandon the old ways.

Those who survived became more angry and desperate as time went on. Small rebellions cropped up now and then, but they were always quelled by the Capitol‘s superior military might.

Then came the Dark Days. The Fae finally managed to organize enough to launch a full-scale offensive on the Capitol, led by District 13. For a short time there was hope for a world in which the Fae were no longer enslaved.

But the Capitol fought back, and not just with guns and bombs. Human scientists had been experimenting with Fae DNA, even going so far as to combine it with their own to lengthen their lifespans, but nothing was as bad as the mutts.

The Capitol engineered muttations—mutts for short—by breeding animals with Fae DNA. The result was a variety of abominations, from jabberjays with Tiyanak blood who could mimic any sound they heard, to tracker jackers bred to inject their prey with Djieiene venom.

With their own powers turned against them, the Fae were defeated once again. District 13 was eradicated, and the Fae were returned to an even harsher rule than that which they‘d been rebelling against.

After the rebellion, the Capitol instituted the annual Hunger Games. The Games worked on multiple levels, entertaining the humans of the Capitol while reminding the Fae that they were helpless to fight back—and that their powers were only effective against one another.

Every year, the names of two Fae are drawn from each district, one male and one female. The twenty-four tributes are forced into a battle to the death, until only the Victor remains.

Many Fae now look forward to the games, gleefully watching along as the Capitol broadcasts every moment on ever-present television screens. The legends aren‘t even told very often anymore, of the freedom the Fae used to have, the lives they could be living. For seventy-four years, the Hunger Games have worked as an incredibly effective tool to keep the Fae under the Capitol‘s control.

This year, all that is about to change.


	2. Chapter 2

_Be still  
And go on to bed  
Nobody knows what lies ahead  
And life is short  
To say the least_

“Come on,” Bo urges, her fingers tapping a leisurely path through the sweat on Dyson’s chest. “I’m sure they won’t notice if you’re a few minutes late.” Sure she’s sated, hunger-wise, but who ever said no to a little dessert?

Apparently, Dyson. “I guarantee they would.” He smiles and captures her wandering fingers in his hand, tugs them away from his skin. “And you need to get out of here anyway, before someone figures out I’ve been sneaking you into places you shouldn’t be.”

“Oh please,” Bo scoffs, tilting closer to Dyson’s lips. “You’re the only one who lives in the Victors’ Village, who’s gonna tell?”

“Exactly.” He smirks, in that maddening way that tells Bo she’s definitely lost, and nudges her back away from him. “If anyone sees you coming out of here, they’ll know exactly who let you in.”

“Like everyone doesn’t already know,” Bo grumbles, grudgingly letting him slip out from between her and the wall. She turns around to slump back against it, crossing her arms. “You’re no fun.”

It’s only halfway teasing; now that the endorphins are starting to fade, she can feel a familiar gloom coming on.

Dyson notices, quickly refastening his pants before moving in to rest his hands on her shoulders. “Hey,” he says gently, tilting Bo’s chin up with his thumb. “It’s just another year. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks and you can distract me all you want.”

“I know, I just—I hate it,” Bo sighs, frustrated. “You already won your games, like, how long ago? It’s supposed to be over.”

Darkness creeps into his expression, his smile grim. “It’s never over, Bo.”

She doesn’t press him after that, too unsettled by the resignation in his voice. She straightens her own clothing, holds him for a few seconds longer when he kisses her goodbye.

“Don’t have too much fun without me,” he admonishes, and his smile is at least convincing enough for Bo to easily return it.

When he gets back, he won’t ask how she’s kept herself fed in his absence—and she sure as hell won’t tell him. She finally learned that lesson after one too many headache-inducing discussions about his jealousy; Dyson can understand that a succubus needs to feed regularly, but he’s never been able to wrap his head around the idea of his girlfriend sleeping with other people.

If _girlfriend_ is even the right word. They don’t exactly have long talks about their relationship; every time Bo brings it up, Dyson tries to distract her with sex. Well okay, he usually succeeds, which only means they never do get around to having that talk.

He doesn’t like talking about the future—that’s probably part of it. But did the games do that to him? Or something else, something before the Vaccine changed his entire existence?

Now that she thinks of it, he doesn’t like talking about the past much either. _That_ part Bo can understand; some things just hurt too much.

 

***

 

Trick greets her with a knowing smirk as she steps into the dim light of the Dal Riata. It’s empty, of course—closed for Reaping Day—but that never stops him from lingering for as long as he can before everyone in the district is required to be at the square.

“You’d better get cleaned up,” Stella chides, heels clacking against the wood floor as she strides in from the back fastening an ornate necklace around her throat. “It wouldn’t do to show up at the Reaping looking like _that_.”

Bo rolls her eyes, more out of habit than anything else. She knows how disheveled she looks—but she also remembers how much fun it was _getting_ this way.

“There’s hot water waiting for you,” Trick offers, saving Bo from further lecturing. She flashes him a grateful smile before heading downstairs.

As promised, the bathing tub is steaming enticingly in the center of her small basement room. She soaks for as long as she dares, letting the warmth of the water seep into her relaxed muscles—then Trick’s warning knock spurs her into action, quickly scrubbing and drying off.

Stella’s laid out a dress for her to wear—one of the more wholesome things in Bo’s closet, but then it doesn’t really matter what she wears. The people of District Twelve have been judging her from the minute she set foot here—before, even, when the story of her discovery was first making its way to their ears. Their opinions aren’t likely to change now, but that hasn’t stopped Stella from trying to encourage “modest, respectable clothing choices”.

Still, it will be far easier just to wear the red-and-white gingham sundress. Bo has had her share of arguments with Stella over her fashion sense, and she’s learned by now that all protesting will do is give her a headache.

Besides, she looks gorgeous in it. The thought comforts her as she examines herself in one of Trick’s antique mirrors; at least she can show Dyson what he’ll be missing for the next couple of weeks.

***

The square is already packed with Fae when Bo arrives. A group of bored-looking humans sit behind a long table, processing Fae as they step up from a long line. Those deemed fit for the games are directed to the Reaping pool, where they’ll stand separated by perceived age and the gender assigned to them by the Capitol. Bo has learned since arriving in District Twelve that Fae gender is far more complicated than the Capitol would care to admit, most likely because they don’t want to bother reconfiguring their precious game rituals.

She steps up to the registration line behind a young woman with a toddler in her arms and two little girls in tow. They all share the same ebony skin, the same wiry black hair pulled into tight braids. Bo hasn’t seen them around town much; she thinks they live somewhere out near the mines.

When they approach the registration table, the older of the two girls starts to panic. It’s not until her mother hands off the toddler to the younger girl and starts murmuring reassurances that Bo realizes the girl is about to be registered as a potential tribute. She can’t be much older than eleven or twelve—what kind of bullshit criteria did the humans use to decide she was of age?

Over her mother’s shoulder, the girl briefly meets Bo’s gaze. Her eyes glow faintly orange, like the weakest of embers, and a tear slides down to leave a shining trail of black down her cheek. Bo offers what she hopes is a reassuring smile; she’s not sure what _could_ reassure a child that might be sent to their death.

After a moment, the girl’s mother notices where her attention is fixed; she glances back, frowns, and her arms tighten around her daughter as she pointedly turns her away.

Bo _tries_ not to take it personally. Almost everyone in town is wary of her, at the very least. It’s nothing new.

After registering, Bo takes her place among a group of what looks like her peers; in reality, most of the women are probably at least three or four times Bo’s age. Leave it to humans to base everything on their own narrow perceptions.

She doesn’t _hate_ humans. It’s nothing that simple. Bo has a childhood full of happy memories, of friends and family and a normal, human life. It’s just that she can’t think of any of it without remembering the way they tore her from her home, from everything she knew; the memory of the time she got lost when she was five and a Peacekeeper got her home safely is now forever linked to the memory of the Peacekeepers who leered at her on the hovercraft, raking their eyes over her in a chilling mixture of lust and hatred and the tiniest bit of fear.

The same expressions greet her now, accompanied by varied degrees of distrust from the Fae around her. She’s lived in District Twelve for almost ten years, but to some of them she’ll always be an outsider—not to mention the distrust that Trick has explained comes with being a certain _type_ of Fae. Even among “her own kind”, as the humans say, she’s still considered a monster.

A little before two o’clock, the mayor strides up onto the stage. Lauren Lewis, District Twelve’s escort, follows stiffly behind, then Dyson takes the last of the three assembled chairs. As the mentor for District Twelve, it’s his job to prepare its tributes for the games—and to be there for their Reaping.

At precisely two, the mayor steps up to the podium. He’s an imposing man, with dark skin and darker eyes and a voice like smooth gravel. He launches into the usual Capitol-penned speech relaying the history of Panem, how the discovery of the Fae and subsequent creation of the Vaccine threw the country into the greatest civil war ever known. His jaw clenches, like it does every year, as he describes the creation of the Hunger Games—the Fae’s eternal penance for their crimes against humanity.

Dyson looks up and scowls as the mayor introduces him, ever unwilling to show any more enthusiasm than that; then Lauren Lewis takes the podium. Her blonde hair is done up in typically extravagant Capitol style, her appearance polished from the gleaming silver necklace around her neck, to her tailored seafoam green skirt suit, to the calculated shine of her patent leather heels; she couldn’t look more out of place in the dirty, crowded square if she tried.

This is only Lauren’s second year as escort; before that, rumor has it she worked pretty high up in Capitol government. She must have done something pretty bad to get stuck with this backwater assignment, but the rumor mill is strangely silent on that subject.

Lauren rushes through the standard speech about what an honor it is to be here, how exciting it is that another Hunger Games is upon us already. She’s either really insincere or really bad at public speaking—she’s only slightly more convincing than the mayor was. Bo looks at Dyson instead, while she still can; once the Reaping is over, it’ll be weeks before she sees him again.

Finally it’s time for the drawing. Lauren moves over to one of the bowls and pulls out a small, folded slip of paper. The square goes silent, the hope of thousands hinging on the name it bears not being their own.

“Laney Whitaker,” Lauren announces after clearing her throat.

Down toward the front, in the youngest group, a frantic cry goes up; at the same time, a few groups away from Bo, there’s a commotion as someone tries to fight their way to the aisle.

A few moments later, a Peacekeeper emerges from the younger group holding the shoulder of Laney Whitaker, and Bo’s stomach sinks. It’s the girl she saw in line earlier, the scared child that has no business being anywhere near a battlefield. This _can’t_ be right.

Surely someone else will see that, right? She can’t be the only one unwilling to see a child be sacrificed; someone will volunteer to take her place, someone who stands a better chance of surviving.

But no one speaks, and it soon becomes apparent no one is going to; even the girl’s mother, struggling her way to the aisle, is silent but for her sobs.

There’s no one else.

“I volunteer!” 


	3. Chapter 3

It’s not a conscious decision; Bo’s not even sure that the words have come from her own mouth until all eyes in the square turn to her. Murmurs of disbelief ripple through the crowd and a cold, numb feeling settles in Bo’s stomach. What has she done?

Then Laney turns, wiping at the tears on her coal black cheeks. Her eyes seek out Bo’s, hope glowing red like hot coals, and whether Bo meant to speak up or not, there’s no going back now.

“I volunteer as tribute,” she repeats defiantly, her voice steady even if nothing else is.  The murmurs fade into silent shock.

Static crackles over the speakers as Lauren Lewis, District Twelve’s new escort, clears her throat. “Um, o-okay.” She flashes an awkward smile, her hands fidgeting with a stack of index cards. “That’s great, but I-I haven’t asked for volunteers yet, so—”

“Who cares?” The mayor strokes his goatee as he looks out into the crowd, eyes narrowing as they land on Bo. She hasn’t had the best relationship with local authority, and the look on his face says he’d be thrilled to get rid of her. “The succubus wants to volunteer. Why waste time with formalities?”

“Formalities are important,” Lauren says, as much to the crowd as to the mayor himself. “Order and discipline are what separate people from animals.”

Bo is too numb to roll her eyes, too busy processing what she’s just done. The line is one she’s heard all her life, spouted by haughty Capitol elite and impoverished Peacekeepers alike. Even Lauren herself looks a bit exasperated with the words.

“Now, Laney Whitaker has been drawn as the female tribute to represent District Twelve in the seventy-fourth annual Hunger Games,” Lauren continues, rushing stiltedly through the words as she reads them from the cards in her hand. “Would anyone like to volunteer as tribute in her place?”

Before Bo can say anything, there’s a tug on her arm. Trick has managed to infiltrate the group; his small stature comes in handy sometimes. “You don’t have to do this, Bo,” he says earnestly, with pleading eyes.

Bo glances over her shoulder at the worried look on the little girl’s—Laney’s—face, then turns back to give Trick a strained smile. “Yeah, I do.”

Lauren clears her throat again. “Last call. Do we have a volunteer?”

“Yes,” Bo calls out, with no small amount of sarcasm. The line of Peacekeepers parts with sluggish confusion to let her into the aisle. “I volunteer.”

“Very well. Please approach the stage.”

Closer to the front, the Peacekeepers allow Laney to return to the crowd. She’s immediately scooped up by her mother, held in a desperate and tearful hug. Bo catches their eyes as she passes, returns their grateful smiles with a shaky one of her own.

Heart pounding in her throat, Bo climbs the steps onto the stage. Everyone in the square is watching her, save for one significant pair; Dyson remains seated in his place at the back of the stage, glaring stonily into the distance. His crossed arms and scowl make him look like nothing so much as a very broody statue; it's a far cry from the sated smiles he gave her this morning. Bo frowns, but she hardly has time to question him about it right now.

“Right this way.” Lauren waves Bo over to the podium. Her hand settles on Bo’s shoulder, warmth bleeding through the leather jacket. There’s a flash of something that almost looks like sympathy in her eyes. “What’s your name?”

“Bo Dennis.” Numbly, Bo searches the crowd for the spot she’s just vacated. Trick is nowhere to be found. Out around the edges of the square, ropes separate the potential tributes from the rest of the district’s residents—fae who are deemed unfit for the games, too old or too young or too dangerous, and humans who are unlucky enough to have been forced to live here rather than the Capitol. If she looked long and close enough, she might find her mother among them, but fear of the expression she might find keeps her from trying.

Instead, Bo listens absently as the Reaping continues. She doesn’t recognize the name Lauren calls, but the piercing shriek that follows is familiar enough; she’s heard it, albeit more distantly, every time there’s been an accident or cave-in at the mines. It’s a sound associated with fear, and the young man who shakily approaches the stage with his hands clapped over his mouth is a perfect embodiment of that fear—eyes rapidly dilating and contracting, the shaggy black hair standing up off of his head morphing into feathers and then back again. Whatever type of Fae he is, he’s clearly a nervous one; Bo offers him a reassuring smile, but he only keens softly into his hands, quivering as Lauren concludes the Reaping.

The Peacekeepers close in when it’s over, and Bo tries to meet Dyson’s eyes; he turns his back as the new tributes are led inside.

***

The room they leave Bo alone in is far more extravagant than anything elsewhere in the district—elegant tables made of rare woods, plush armchairs upholstered with velvet. One of the benefits of playing the Capitol’s game, she supposes; all you have to do is abandon any shred of ethics you might have.

It’s strange, being around such luxury again. It seems like a lifetime ago that she lived in the Capitol, just another pretty human girl. She used to dream about going back, but never like this.

The door swings open, and Bo’s heart stops in her throat as she looks up. “Mama.”

Her mother scowls at the Peacekeeper until the door clicks shut behind her, then turns her ire toward Bo. “Don’t you ‘Mama’ me,” she snaps, standing stiffly in place. “I’m not your mother. I never would have taken you in, raised you if I’d known what you were. Filthy monster.”

Bo has heard the words before, but they cut just as deeply now as they did the first time. She winces, blinks back the tears that spring up so easily. “I can’t help what I am, Mama, but I know I’m not a monster.” Her voice shakes, but she holds her chin up defiantly—a far cry from that first time, when she curled in on herself and wept until the Peacekeepers dragged her away. “I’m Fae.”

“Same thing,” Mama sneers. “You’re a god-forsaken demon either way. It’s good you volunteered. Your father’s blood is on your hands—you might as well pay him back with your own.”

Maybe it’s the probability of her impending death, or maybe she’s just tired of playing this game, but Bo breaks. “That was _not_ my fault,” she defends harshly, guilt tearing at her stomach nonetheless. “I didn’t make him resist arrest.”

“No, you’re just the reason they were arresting him in the first place!” Mama’s cheeks flush with anger, eyes filling with tears. “Taking you in was the worst mistake we ever made. We could still be living in the Capitol, the two of us, never hungry or dirty or upset.”

“Oh, please.” Bo rolls her eyes. “Life in the Capitol was _not_ perfect.”

“It was before _you_ came along!”

The venom dripping from the words doesn’t hurt nearly as much as the look of disgust in her mother’s eyes. “What do you want me to do?” Bo half-sobs, half-shouts. “I can’t take it back. I am what I am, and what’s done is done. Now if you’re done making me feel like shit—”

“Beth? Honey?” The change is sudden, the gentle concern in Mama’s voice stunning Bo into silence. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

Tears slip quietly down Bo’s cheeks. Mama had moments of confusion the last time they spoke, but nothing as jarring as this. “Nothing, Mama,” Bo chokes out. She reaches for her mother’s hand, squeezes gently. “You should get going. I’ll have a train to catch pretty soon.”

A dazed sort of smile touches Mama’s lips. “Oh, are you going somewhere?”

Bo sighs, getting up to move to the door. “Yeah. A nice long vacation.” She closes her eyes as she knocks, silently begging the Peacekeeper to answer promptly.

“That’s lovely, dear,” Mama says with a smile. The door opens, and the Peacekeeper reaches for her elbow to lead her out. “You have a good time.”

The door shuts behind her mother, and Bo barks out a humorless laugh as she sinks into a plush velvet chair. There will be nothing good about this “vacation”.

The fancy grandfather clock ticks loudly; Bo listens morosely as it counts down her last hour in District Twelve. This time is meant for visits from loved ones; she expected more than the bitter shell of her mother. Dyson she’ll see on the train at least, and up until the Games start; she can find out what bug crawled up _his_ ass later.

But she thought Trick would come. He’s the only real family she has, but the clock ticks on as the door remains unopened.

When five minutes remain, the door opens abruptly and Trick rushes in, an apologetic look on his face.

“I was worried you weren’t coming,” Bo admits. “Where were you?”

Trick grimaces. “Off nearly making an apocalyptic mistake.”

Bo’s eyes widen. “Trick, you didn’t—”

“No,” he assures uneasily. “I wanted to, but Stella stopped me.”

It’s a small relief, but a relief nonetheless; Trick’s blood magic always has serious consequences, and they’re usually bad. “Good,” Bo says, pinning him with a stern look. It lasts maybe a moment before her lips curl up into a smile. “But I’m glad you care.”

“Of course I care. You’re my granddaughter, Bo.” Trick moves to stand in front of Bo’s chair, reaching out for her hand. “And I have faith in you. You’re going to win this.”

Bo draws a shaky breath. “I don’t know,” she says, exhaling heavily. “For me to win, twenty three other people have to die. I don’t know if I can even hope for that.”

“Bo, listen to me.” Trick squeezes her hand, tugs at it until she meets his eyes. “You can’t think about them. You can’t think about anyone but yourself in there if you want to survive.”

“Trick, I’m not a killer.” Bo shakes her head, laughing helplessly. “I feed on sex chi, for crying out loud. How am I supposed to win something like this, by screwing everyone to death?”

“By playing on people’s preconceptions,” Trick corrects solemnly. “Everyone knows you’re a succubus. They’ll underestimate you because of that. Use it to your advantage.”

It’s solid advice, but it hinges on her being able to take a life. “Let’s hope you’re right.”

Trick gives her hand one last squeeze before pulling back, rummaging in the pockets of his vest. “I have something for you,” he says, smiling triumphantly when he pulls out a small stone pendant dangling on a leather cord.

Bo accepts the gift, turns the pendant over in her palm. It’s a small hollow circle, split by a horizontal line. Two vertical lines divide the lower half further. She doesn’t recognize the symbol, but it feels…familiar, somehow.

“A symbol of your true self,” Trick explains. “It used to be painted on one’s forehead with the essence of white oleander, before their Dawning.”

“Dawning?”

“Another Fae tradition that’s fallen by the wayside since the humans took over. It’s a rite of passage. These games are probably as close as you can get anymore.” A grim smile touches his lips as he closes her hand around the necklace. “They should let you wear a favor in the arena. Keep it close, and never forget who you are—where you come from.”

The door opens, and the Peacekeeper motions impatiently for Trick to leave. He squeezes her hand one last time, holding her gaze for a long moment. Tears well up in Bo’s eyes as she realizes this might be the last time she ever sees him.

By the time her vision has cleared, Trick is gone.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

The chambers they give Bo on the train to the Capitol are almost as large as the entire basement she shares with Trick at home. The bed looks so soft and inviting that she’s tempted just to fall onto it face first, but District Twelve’s usual grime coupled with the sweat and tears of the past few hours are enough to convince her to take advantage of the private bath first.

It’s been years since she’s been able to able to take a real bath, with bubbles and hot water and complete privacy. She was another person then, in another life; now the weight of what she’s taken on hovers over her, a constant reminder of the clock ticking down the last days of her life.

She doesn’t think she can kill. Everyone will expect her to, but the thought of taking a life, of turning into the monster her mother has always thought her to be—it rolls uneasily in her stomach, claws at the back of her throat. She won’t be that monster.

Which probably means she’s going to die.

The thought nags at Bo’s mind, and once she’s dry and dressed it’s clear that a quick nap before supper is not going to be possible. She sighs, opens the door to her chambers. She needs a distraction.

They didn’t say she _couldn’t_ explore the train.

***

“Good, you’re here.” Bo crosses her arms, glaring at the back of Dyson’s head. He doesn’t move in his chair, but she can see his shoulders stiffen at the sound of her voice. “Maybe you can tell me why you’re acting like I kicked your puppy.”

“Kicked my—” Dyson cuts off sharply, shakes his head. He lifts a glass to his mouth, takes a large swig of something most likely alcoholic. When he turns around, the intensity in his eyes is enough to send chills down Bo’s spine—and not necessarily the good kind. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Bo, what the hell were you thinking!?”

Then somehow he’s in Bo’s space, close enough for her to see the pounding of his pulse in his clenched jaw. He’s trying to intimidate her, but mostly it just pisses her off.

And, okay, turns her on a little. But mostly it pisses her off. “I was _thinking_ —” She pushes at his chest, forcing him back. “—that I couldn’t let that little girl be sent off to her death!”

“So you volunteer to die in her place?” Dyson all but snarls.

It’s not like she hasn’t already reached the same conclusion, but for some reason hearing Dyson dismiss her chances out of hand sends Bo reeling. “Gee,” she sneers, bitterness covering the tears choking up her throat. “Your confidence is so touching.” She turns away, refusing to let him see her cry. Not over this. She wouldn’t take it back if she could; just the memory of the fear in those eyes is enough to assure her that she did the right thing.

“Bo.” Dyson’s voice is softer now, calmer, but she can tell it’s taking a great effort. He speaks slowly, matter-of-factly. “You are going to be trapped in an arena with twenty-three other Fae, all of them trying to kill you. The odds…well, they’re not in your favor.”

Bo can’t help but chuckle just a little, though there’s little mirth in it. The odds are never in anyone’s favor but the Capitol’s, no matter how many stupid catchphrases they come up with. “You survived.”

She expects a lecture about age and experience and discipline, or maybe a heated reminder to take this all seriously; he never seems to pass up a chance to point out how naive and inexperienced she is.

Maybe that’s not fair, though, because he doesn’t actually say anything. After a moment she turns around, a small gasp catching in her throat at the haunted look in his eyes. Her irritation is forgotten in a surge of desperation, and she reaches for his shoulder more out of a need for an anchor than a desire to comfort.

“Look, I get it.” Her voice shakes, fear clawing at her stomach. She slides her hand up to cup Dyson’s cheek, clammy and prickly with stubble, and offers a weak smile. “You’re scared. I am too, but it’s not like I can take it back now.”

Dyson closes his eyes, draws a heavy breath. “I know,” he concedes, his hands finding her waist almost unconsciously.

The contact steadies her, a comfortable familiarity after the storm of cameras and reporters that saw them to the train. “At least I have you.” She smiles, strokes at his bearded jaw with her thumb as she moves closer. “You can distract me from my certain doom.”

Before she can get close enough to kiss Dyson, his hands tighten on her hips and hold her at arms’ length. “Bo, we can’t.” His voice is pained, but determined. He swallows, clenches his jaw. “There are rules.”

Bo rolls her eyes as a smirk plays at her lips. “What are they gonna do, kill me?”

He doesn’t laugh. Instead his jaw tenses, his fingers dig into her hips. He shoves her away in one hard push before storming out, leaving her staring after him in disbelief.

***

When Bo returns to the dining car for supper, Dyson is nowhere to be found. That suits her just fine; she doesn’t need his shitty mood when she has more important things to worry about.

“Bo.” Lauren greets her with a smile that looks suspiciously genuine, then gestures to the table’s only other occupant. “This is Asanka. With all the…commotion earlier, I don’t think you got the chance to meet.”

Her fellow tribute appears a great deal more collected than he did at the Reaping, but there’s still tension in his frame, fear shadowing his eyes. “Hello,” he says, polite but distant. “It is very nice to meet you.”

“You too,” Bo returns with a reassuring smile. She thought _she_ was scared, but Asanka is practically shaking. She takes a seat next to him at the table, searches for something to talk about—something to distract them from what they are about to face. “So what kind of Fae are you?”

The reaction is instantaneous: his pupils dilate in wide-open eyes, and his head cocks anxiously. Bo could kick herself—no matter how hard Trick tries to teach her, she remains woefully inadequate at Fae social graces.

“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” Bo offers, leaning in with a disarming smile.

It earns her a nervous chuckle as he looks down at the table. “Everyone knows you are a succubus.” He speaks quietly, with a throaty, lilting accent; it’s almost musical.

“Well now you have to tell me,” Bo ripostes with mock seriousness. She gives his arm a gentle nudge with her elbow. “You have me at a disadvantage and the games haven’t even started yet.”

A shy smile tugs at his mouth, and he takes a breath before hesitantly meeting her eyes. “I am ulama.”

Bo’s face scrunches almost instantly. “You’re a llama?”

Lauren snorts into her hand, while Asanka’s response is a restrained laugh—more subdued, but no less genuine. “ _Ulama_ ,” he repeats, visibly relaxing bit by bit. “Some people call us devil birds.”

Bo lifts an eyebrow, impressed. “Sounds badass.”

He shakes his head, all mirth draining from his face. “Not really,” he admits in a trembling voice. “We…we sense when death is near. That is why people fear our cry.”

“Like a banshee?”

“Not quite,” Lauren interjects. “A banshee’s power is a bit more set in stone. From what I understand, an ulama only senses the possibility of imminent death—it can still be avoided.”

Interesting. Bo doesn’t know all of what being an escort entails, but she’s pretty sure that in-depth study of Fae powers isn’t really a job requirement. She files the observation away, for the moment focusing on the information itself. “That’s why you work in the mines,” she says quietly as realization dawns.

“I am very good at helping others avoid danger,” Asanka explains with a nod. “But I am afraid it will not be of much use to me in the arena. I cannot control the cry.”

It hits Bo then, really hits her, that this gentle, nervous young man is supposed to be her enemy. In a couple of weeks, at least one of them will be dead. Her chest swells with anger at the needless injustice of it, then deflates just as quickly when she realizes there’s very little she can do.

“That’s what training is for,” she offers feebly, giving his arm an encouraging pat. “Dyson knows his stuff; he’ll whip us into shape.”

As if on cue, the door to the dining car is shoved open. Dyson takes a seat at the far end of the table, pointedly not meeting Bo’s inquisitive gaze.

“ _Baby_ ,” Bo mutters under her breath, rolling her eyes and rising from her chair. Dyson tenses at her approach, but at least he doesn’t try to storm out again.

“What do you want, Bo?” Dyson grits out, quiet and impatient as she settles into the chair next to him.

“I thought I made that pretty clear,” she flirts in response, sliding her hand onto his thigh under the table. The muscles are rock-hard under her palm, as tense as the set of his shoulders and the clench of his fists.

His jaw twitches as he shoves her hand away. “What’s clear is that you aren’t taking this even a little bit seriously. You need to get your head in the game if you want to survive.”

Bo leans forward with a smirk, crossing her arms under her breasts. She’s not above using cleavage to further her goals. “I’m a succubus, remember?” she murmurs, centimeters away from his lips. “My chances might be better if I’m well-fed.”

Dyson’s teeth flash, and then his hand is in Bo’s hair, tugging her head back. Hot breath rushes against Bo’s mouth as he follows, pinning her with an iron glare. “Bo.”

“Yeah?” Bo breathes. She’s not sure whether to be scared or turned on.

The answer becomes clear when Dyson’s hand tightens painfully. “Back. Off.”

She’s thrown off balance when he abruptly releases her hair, but she recovers fast. “Fine.” She bites down on the word, doesn’t look back as she returns to the other end of the table. Asanka and Lauren are sitting stiffly in their seats, trying unsuccessfully to look like they’re not paying attention.

“Sorry,” Bo apologizes, selecting the chair next to Lauren this time. She gets a pair of awkward shrugs and smiles in response; it looks like conversation is up to her. “So Lauren,” she begins, loud enough for Dyson to hear. “Is there really a rule against tributes getting involved with their mentors?”

Lauren sputters for a moment, eyes darting past Bo to Dyson then back again. “Uh, well, yes. But it’s not really enforced, um, unless there’s a high potential for abuse, like a—a significant imbalance in age or power.”

“Interesting.” Bo casts a pointed look at Dyson, who is dishing food onto his plate with a scowl on his face growing darker by the second. She shakes her head and turns back to Lauren, whose cheeks are flushed faintly red. Mischief dances at the corners of Bo’s mouth as she leans in, drops her voice just enough. “What about a tribute and her escort?”

The brightly colored beverage that Lauren is in the middle of drinking catches in her throat, setting off a coughing fit. Bo’s hand rises to rub and pat at Lauren’s back as she regains her breath, eventually slowing to a lazy back-and-forth stroke.

“I—I don’t think it’s come up much,” Lauren stammers, her pulse pounding against Bo’s palm. Her hands flutter nervously in front of her as she speaks, but Bo can see that she’s more flustered than uncomfortable. “Or maybe at all. I’d have to check the records. But I’d—I’d imagine that it would work the same way. Cross-species, uh, intercourse hasn’t been illegal for decades, and—and it’s not nearly as taboo as it was ev—even ten years ago.

Bo drops her eyes, parts her lips as they curl up a little farther. Her fingers trace lazy spirals into Lauren’s back. “Good to know.”

A sudden crash shatters the moment, and Lauren jumps away as Bo whirls around to look. Dyson’s chair clatters to the floor as he storms out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

When no one speaks, she turns to see Lauren and Asanka both staring at the end of the table. The fork and knife Dyson was using to eat his food are now embedded firmly in the wood. “Oh, real mature,” Bo scoffs, rolling her eyes as she looks back at Lauren; the Escort is still wincing, as though it was her that was stabbed rather than the table. “What?”

Lauren looks pained. “That’s _mahogany_.”

 

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus chapter image (shoddily) made by yours truly.

After supper, they move to another compartment to watch a recap of the Reapings. Lauren disappears shortly after getting them set up, and returns ten minutes later with Dyson grudgingly in tow. He sits as far away from Bo as possible and silently glowers at the screen.

Bo is tempted to pop off another snarky comment, but the thought is lost as the Reaping continues on the screen. Unlike in her own district, the crowd in District One doesn’t bat an eye at the Fae who promptly raise their hands and volunteer to compete—at least, not until it devolves into an all-out brawl that requires more than a dozen Peacekeepers to break up.

She hasn’t given much thought to the Careers in a while; they don’t seem as relevant this far away from the Capitol. Now it’s all she can think about as she watches a haughty brunette stride up to the stage, casually wiping a smudge of blood from her cheek. Some time later, after another fight that’s resolved much more quickly (in part due to the two dozen Peacekeepers who converge on the crowd as soon as the call for volunteers goes out), she’s joined by a ruggedly arrogant man whose shirt is gaping so far open he might as well not be wearing one.

Then it’s District Two, and a man who looks to be a mountain of muscle lumbers up to stand next to a sharp-faced blonde whose expression is so cold it gives Bo goosebumps. When they get to District Three, Bo realizes exactly what it is about the Careers that bothers her so much; the slumped shoulders and solemn faces of the tributes trudging reluctantly toward the stage are a stark contrast to the pride that seemed to radiate from the previous two pairs.

In District Four, a tall red-haired woman smirks at the crowd as they wait for the male tribute to approach. He’s a vicious looking man, with brown skin that gleams as if wet; he stretches his mouth in a smug grin, revealing a glimpse of more than one row of razor-sharp teeth.

The Reapings continue, and with every name called the sour, heavy feeling in her stomach gets worse. Some of them look more than capable of holding their own—a muscle-bound woman in Six, a vicious beast of a man in Eleven. Others clearly have powers that will help their odds; a slight boy in Five occasionally crackles with electricity, while deadly-looking quills nervously peek out of the skin of an exceedingly short older man in Eight.

None of it matters. This is about more than survival for the Careers—they’re after glory. These so-called “games” aren’t some horrible tragedy that’s happened to them; they’ve been training for it, volunteered for it. Their stomachs don’t turn at the thought of taking a life, and they won’t hesitate to use whatever means necessary to come out on top. What chance do the rest of them have, in the face of that?

What chance does Bo have, when she’s becoming more and more sure that she can’t— _won’t_ —take a life?

On the screen, Lauren walks up to the podium and begins her speech. They’ve edited it down for broadcast, but it’s still easy to see the unchanging look of boredom on Dyson’s face as he sits slumped in his chair at the back of the stage. He doesn’t appear to be paying attention in the slightest, until Bo’s voice rings out over the crowd; his eyes widen in shock, then slowly narrow as realization dawns. The camera cuts away, and when it comes back to him moments later he’s wearing the seething anger that welcomed Bo onto the stage.

Idiot. Bo knows he’s scared, that he doesn’t want to lose her—but doesn’t that mean they should take advantage of whatever time they have left? They’ve never been anything quite…official, but they have _something_ , something that she’s pretty sure could give her much-needed strength if Dyson would just get over himself.

She glances over at him, at his tense jaw and clenched fists; she wants to reach out and smooth his brow with her thumb, to kiss the scowl from his lips, but he’s made it pretty damn clear where they stand. Her eyes drift away, settling on Lauren instead.

If Dyson won’t give her what she needs, maybe she just needs to find something new.

***

The Capitol looms before them the next morning, glittering and more vibrant than Bo remembers. Maybe she’s just gotten used to the dismal, sedate colors of District Twelve. As soon as they get close enough, people begin to stop and point, to wave to the arriving tributes as though they are well-loved dignitaries or celebrities of special note.

It’s impossible for Bo to know for sure—they’re too far away to attempt to identify any individual faces—but there’s a nagging voice in the back of her mind that is sure these are the same people who jeered and spat as she was dragged away by the Peacekeepers. The same whose warm smiles turned to disgust and hatred and fear when they learned what she really was.

Suddenly, the Capitol seems to glitter a little bit less.

***

“Wowza.” Ice-blue eyes open wide as they run up and down Bo’s form. “You are frickin’ gorgeous. I mean, don’t get me wrong—” the stylist presses colorfully manicured fingers to her chest, “—I am strictly into dudes, but _damn_.”

“Uh…thanks?” Bo would be more flattered by the compliment if she weren’t still stinging—literally and figuratively—from the incredibly thorough grooming she’s just been through. Seriously—it’s not like waxing is exactly a high priority in a district that rarely even has _electricity_ ; they didn’t have to give her such dirty looks.

“Um, anyway, I’m Kenzi, your stylist, and…and you must be Bo.” Kenzi flinches a little when Bo takes her offered hand, then shakes gingerly.

“You know I can’t hurt you, right?” Bo asks, a little more archly than she intends. “I mean I doubt they’d let you work with Fae if you hadn’t been vaccinated.”

“Huh?” Kenzi frowns, takes a moment to sort out what Bo means. “Oh! Oh my god, no, it’s not that at all.” She reaches out to squeeze Bo’s arm to prove it.

It’s Bo’s turn to be confused. “So what is it then?”

Kenzi takes a deep breath, fidgeting nervously with the laces of her corset. “It’s my first time, okay? I—I’ve never worked in the Games before, and they didn’t really give me a whole lot of info on how to act around someone who’s probably going to be dead in a week.” Her hand slaps over her mouth a second after the words pass her lips, eyes widening in apology.

“Thanks.” Bo rolls her eyes, irritated. “That really does wonders for my self-esteem.”

“I am so sorry,” Kenzi says, gesturing emphatically. “That was a shitty thing to say, and I’m a shitty person for saying it, and this whole situation is just _shitty_ , and—”

“Whoa, calm down, motormouth.” Bo rests her hands on Kenzi’s shoulders, stunning her into silence. The encouraging smile that pushes onto her lips fades almost instantly, and she sighs like her chest weighs a hundred pounds. “It’s not like you’re wrong.”

Kenzi’s face brightens a little too much, her voice a little too hopeful. “Hey, you never know, you could—”

Bo shakes her head, sighs. “Probably not. I’ve never killed anyone before, and I don’t plan to start now.”

“Shitballs,” Kenzi swears under her breath. “Why would you volunteer then? This is like a suicide mission for you.”

“I didn’t really think,” Bo says with a shrug. “I just did it. I couldn’t let that little girl be sent off to her death.”

Kenzi shakes her head. “Man, you are so screwed.” She winces, sheepishly meets Bo’s eyes. “Sorry.”

“No worries,” Bo says. “It’s better than lying to myself about my chances and running toward death head-first.”

“So shitty,” Kenzi repeats, turning her eyes to the ceiling. “God, this sucks.”

“If you hate the Games so much, why would you want this job?”

“Lack of options?” Kenzi shrugs, the corner of her mouth tightening. “I have in- _credible_ skills, but no one in the design world will take you seriously unless you’ve worked in the Games. It was basically this or design uniforms for industry workers,” she finishes, scrunching her nose in distaste.

“I guess Fae aren’t the only ones the Capitol has screwed over,” Bo mutters sardonically.

“Preach, sistah,” Kenzi says, pointing a fist at Bo. When Bo just looks at it in confusion Kenzi reaches out and grabs Bo’s own hand, guiding it through an overly complicated sort of handshake. She pulls her hand back, fingers spread, and steps back to peruse Bo’s body again. A confident smirk plays at the corner of her mouth. “Well if you’re going on a one-way trip, we can at least send you off in style. By the time I’m done with you, no one in Panem will know what’s hit them.” 


	6. Chapter 6

Bo’s parents used to take her to watch the opening parade every year; the bright lights and dazzling costumes always seemed so impossibly glamorous, like the tributes were these elite, untouchable gods. It wasn’t until she was shipped off to District Twelve that she finally saw through the lies.

Now she wonders how no one can see what is so obvious, what lurks just beneath the surface of every fake smile and blown kiss; the fear, the resignation, the blood lust. The horse-drawn chariots, the makeup, the flamboyant costumes—they’re all just a distraction, a way to make people forget that these Fae are essentially being sacrificed for their entertainment.

Still, there is some part of her that thrills to feel smooth black silk hugging her skin. It’s been so long since she’s worn anything remotely pretty; she forgot what it was like. When Kenzi’s extra special touch kicks in as they enter the city, all eyes move to her; the modest train of her dress catches fire, harmless flames spitting a shower of sparks out behind her.

Asanka is tense next to her, shoulders squared in forced confidence as the edges of his tailored black suit glow orange. His clenched fists tremble at his sides. His head jerks back halfway through the parade, a mournful shriek pouring from his throat.

Bo reaches for the hand nearest her, nudging his fingers apart so that she can lace them with her own. His cry cuts off abruptly, his gaze darting to her own. A meek, grateful smile tugs at his mouth, and he squeezes her hand in thanks.

The crowd goes wild, mistaking the cry for a sign of aggression. Bo lifts their joined hands in the air, taking advantage of the mistake to draw more attention and cheers. It’s mostly tactical—if she’s going to have any hope at all, she’ll need sponsors, and Dyson doesn’t seem to be in a very helpful place right now. Part of her, though, is darkly satisfied to so blatantly rebel against the Capitol. Let the others have their hatred and violence; they can force her into the Arena, but they can’t make her change who she is.

***

After the parade, Lauren and Dyson arrive to escort Bo and Asanka up to the floor they’ll be calling home for the next few days. Dyson immediately pulls Asanka aside, murmuring to him in hushed tones about training strategies as the elevator ascends.

Bo shoots a glare at his back before turning to smile at Lauren instead. “So how’d you get stuck with this gig?” she asks, leaning against the wall of the elevator a little closer to Lauren than necessary. “You don’t really seem like the escort type.”

“I, uh, I’m really not,” Lauren admits with a chuckle. “But I—I didn’t have much of a choice.” Curiously, her eyes dart to Dyson’s back before she shakes her head and offers Bo a crooked, forced smile. “Guess now I’ll remember never to piss off the boss.”

Behind Bo, there’s a significant pause in Dyson’s speech; he turns back quickly when Bo glances back at him, but it’s clear he was paying attention. There’s definitely a story here. If only there were time to devote to figuring it out; it’d be a lot more fun than training to keep herself from being killed for the next three days.

Brushing the thought aside, Bo focuses on more achievable goals. She smiles and leans in just enough to catch the mild scent of Lauren’s perfume. “I don’t see how anyone could stay mad at you,” she purrs.

Color rushes to Lauren’s cheeks. “Believe me, it’s definitely possible,” she stammers out.

“Mm, I’m not sure I believe you.” Bo traces the lapel of Lauren’s suit jacket with her fingertips, letting one finger catch on the top button before she pulls back her hand. “But I guess I’ll just have to take your word for it.”

Before Lauren can respond, the elevator stops at the top floor. When the doors slide open, Lauren slips out from between Bo and the wall, fiddling with her collar as she hurries out.

Dyson catches Bo’s arm as she moves to go after Lauren. He pulls her out into the hallway, pinning her against the wall with an arm on either side of her head. “You need to watch yourself, Bo.”

Bo scoffs. “Oh, _now_ you care?”

“I’ve always cared!” Dyson hisses, his teeth flashing in the flourescent light. “I wouldn’t be this angry with you if I didn’t care.”

“Well ignoring me is a funny way to show it,” Bo spits.

“Damn it, Bo!” Dyson’s hand collides firmly with the wall next to Bo’s head, making her jump. “Is that why you’re flirting with Lauren? To get back at me?”

“A girl’s got needs,” Bo taunts with a shrug. “If you don’t want to satisfy them…”

Dyson’s jaw tightens. “You can’t even feed off of her,” he says through his teeth. “She’s been vaccinated.”

A smirk twists Bo’s mouth, straddling a narrow border between teasing and vindictive. “Who said anything about feeding?”

It throws him, at least long enough for her to duck under his arm and get away.

***

“So anyway, uh, here are your quarters.” Lauren pushes the door open and stands back, careful to keep space between herself and Bo.

The room is even more extravagant than the train car, but Bo is still keyed up from her argument with Dyson, not to mention the elevator ride spent flirting with Lauren; the furnishings aren’t really her priority at the moment.

Whatever Dyson might think, Bo’s interest in Lauren isn’t based in some petty scheme to make him jealous. At least, not completely. There’s something about this woman, this human who appears so awkward yet somehow seems more proud than anything else. There’s more to Lauren than some Capitol toady—and Bo wants to know all of it.

Hunger pulls at Bo’s blood as she steps closer to Lauren. She’s been feeding off of Dyson pretty much on a daily basis lately, and it’s been a day and a half since the last time. Her body doesn’t know that it can’t feed from Lauren; it’s only aware—and painfully so—that Lauren is _here_ , attractive and warm and most definitely turned on (thank god the Vaccine doesn’t affect _that_ power).

“They’re awfully big,” Bo murmurs, reaching out to tuck a loose strand of hair behind Lauren’s ear. Lauren sucks in a deep breath, trembles silently as Bo’s fingers trail down her neck. “A girl could get lonely.”

Lauren clears her throat and takes a step back, an awkwardly polite smile on her lips. “I, uh, I don’t think you’ll have time for that.”

Bo doesn’t pursue, but she does lean against the door frame in as seductive a manner as possible. “You know,” she purrs, crossing her arms under her breasts, “you’re adorable when you’re flustered.”

That only intensifies the deep red flush of Lauren’s cheeks; she closes her eyes, ducks her head, breathes in to steady herself before meeting Bo’s gaze head-on. “Supper’s in an hour,” she manages in an almost-neutral tone before making a hasty retreat.

Bo watches her go, a thoughtful smirk playing at her lips.

***

Supper is an awkward affair, made even moreso by the appearance of the tower’s servants—all Fae, all dressed in uniform white tunics with gleaming white collars to match.

“What are they, _pets_?” Bo spits, her disgust far outweighing any thrill she might get out of needling Dyson.

“O-of course not,” Lauren replies quickly. “They’re paid employees. The collars are only for protection—theirs as much as ours.”

Dyson scoffs, but doesn’t offer any further comment.

“You see,” Lauren continues, “a-a lot of Fae have a tenuous control of their powers; if they are upset, or startled, they could lose control a-and someone could get hurt. The collars dampen their powers, and prevent them from initiating violence.”

“Nice story, Doc,” Dyson sneers, glaring in Lauren’s direction. “You almost sound like you believe it.”

“Dyson, this really isn’t appropriate—”

“No, really, _Doctor_ Lewis,” Dyson taunts. His hands curl around the edge of the table, pushing his chair back abruptly. “Tell us more. If she’s disgusted by your boss’s slave labor, what’ll she think about what you used to do for a living?”

Lauren rubs at her forehead, takes a slow breath. “In case you’ve forgotten, my job—and yours too, by the way—is to send her into the arena as prepared as possible. It doesn’t matter what she thinks—”

“Gee, thanks,” Bo cuts in snidely. “I’d managed to go five minutes without thinking about the fact that I don’t matter. I’m basically a lamb being fattened up for slaughter, right?.”

The expression on Lauren’s face turns instantly apologetic. “Bo—”

A couple of seats down from Bo, Asanka emits a quiet, high-pitched whine. On either side of him, Kenzi and his stylist—a quiet, flamboyantly dressed young man with intricate swirls shaved into his facial hair—sit awkward and stiff, silently observing the proceedings.

“Don’t bother.” Bo shakes her head and pushes out of her chair. “I’m going back to my _quarters_.”

“But—Bo—” Lauren sputters, calling after Bo. “What about supper?”

Bo turns when she reaches the doorway, takes in the dysfunctional tableau of collared servants, a terrified tribute, two uncomfortable stylists, a seething mentor, and a sheepish escort—or is that doctor? She can’t trust any of it—any of _them_. “Suddenly I’m not very hungry.”

 


	7. Chapter 7

In the morning light, Bo’s indignant anger feels a lot more like fear and apprehension. She starts training today; the start of a countdown, possibly to the end of her life.

She drags herself out of bed and slumps against the wall of the shower, perking up considerably after she lathers something sharply scented and tingly into her skin. It’s enough to open her eyes, at least, and motivate her enough to program an outfit into the closet computer. She exits her room wearing skin-tight black leggings, a low-cut maroon tank top, and the least sensible pair of boots she could find in the database—partly to bug Dyson, but it’s also been so long since she’s been able to wear _nice_ shoes; she really couldn’t resist.

“Good. You’re up,” Dyson greets, in a tone that almost manages to be polite. He and Asanka are seated at the dining table, while a pair of white-clad servants stand at either end of a long buffet-style table covered with various breakfast dishes. “Get some food and have a seat. We need to talk strategy.”

Bo raises an eyebrow. “Oh, are you being civil with me now?” she asks tartly. “You can see how I might get confused, with how you keep changing your mind.”

He’s up and at her side in an instant, strong hand wrapped around her upper arm as he speaks under his breath. “No matter what you think, Bo, the last thing I want is for you to die. So yes, I am going to do whatever I can to make sure you don’t.”

As much as Bo wants to argue (if only to avoid letting him win), she can’t deny the intensity of emotion in his eyes. He may be acting like an asshole, but she knows he cares about her. She rolls her eyes instead, moving directly to another table holding a variety of beverage dispensers. She pours herself a cup of coffee as Dyson finishes up with Asanka, sending him off with instructions to practice the techniques they talked about.

Bo slumps down into the chair across from Dyson, cradling a cup of coffee in her hands. The bitter liquid warms her throat as she takes a sip. She closes her eyes, savors the sharp flavor on her tongue. God, she’s missed coffee; it’s almost unheard of in District Twelve.

When she opens her eyes again, Dyson is glaring sternly at her. “You need to eat something.”

Her stomach growls, but she can’t quite resist the urge to be petulant. “I’m not hungry.”

“Bullshit.”

“What are you, my dad?”

Fuming, Dyson pushes out of his chair and storms over to the breakfast table. He piles a plate high with eggs, meat, fruit—anything he can grab—and drops it onto the table in front of her. “Eat.”

Bo sighs and spears a piece of melon, popping it into her mouth and chewing pointedly as she pushes the plate away. “Happy?”

“Not the word I would use,” Dyson replies through gritted teeth.

“Aren’t you supposed to be, I don’t know—” Bo waves her free hand idly as she takes another swig of coffee. “—imparting some age-old Fae wisdom or something?”

Dyson leans forward on his elbows, glowering across the table as he shoves the plate back in front of her. “First lesson: when you can eat, you _eat_. There won’t be a market or a soup stand in the arena—you take every opportunity to fuel your body that you can.”

The smirk that jumps to Bo’s lips is almost reflex. “Mm, my body prefers a different type of fuel,” she purrs over the edge of her coffee cup.

“And you’ll need to feed that hunger as well,” he huffs impatiently.

“Just not with you.”

The irritation on Dyson’s face fades as his tone turns deadly serious. “I’m not going into the arena with you, Bo. You need to learn how to take care of yourself.”

“Whatever.” Bo rolls her eyes, unwilling to admit his victory out loud. Grudgingly, she stabs her fork into a clump of scrambled eggs. “Next lesson, oh great mentor?”

“There are several stations in the training rooms,” he explains. “You have three days down there—really more like two and a half. You need to learn as much as you can in that time.”

“Any suggestions on where to start?”

“Probably wilderness survival,” Dyson replies, raising a critical eyebrow at Bo’s training outfit. “Edible plants, shelter, traps. You’re going to have to know how to survive in whatever environment they decide to throw you into, and you’re…not the most outdoorsy person.”

“Hey, I go hiking all the time.”

Dyson chuckles in spite of himself. “Sneaking past the fence to go have sex in the woods isn’t hiking, Bo.”

“It’s really fun though,” Bo can’t help but point out, unable to conceal her smile. He raises an eyebrow. “Fine,” she concedes. “Any other helpful hints?”

“Yeah. Don’t show off.” Before Bo can protest, he rushes on to explain. “You’re a succubus. Everyone is going to think that you don’t pose a threat—that you’re some kind of joke.”

Bo snorts. “You talk this sweet to all the girls?”

Dyson shakes his head, his smile growing conspiratorial. “ _Let them_. Take advantage of their ignorance, Bo. The less they know about your powers, the easier it will be to take them by surprise.”

It's the same thing Trick told her. She can’t deny the sense it makes, but her blood chills nonetheless. It’s been easy so far to think about the Games in the abstract, but that’s harder to do when she’s strategizing how to avoid being killed by the other tributes—tributes who she’s about to spend the next three days training with. Second by second, it all gets just a little more real, and soon abstract thinking will be impossible; she won’t be able to think beyond the next moment, not if she wants to survive.

“Bo,” Dyson says gently, pulling her from her thoughts. “You can win this. I really believe that.”

It might be more comforting if he wasn’t clearly lying.

***

The elevator opens to release them into a large gymnasium. They’re the last ones to arrive, squeaking in just five minutes before ten. The rest of the tributes are gathered in a circle; all of them turn to look when Bo and Asanka step up to take their places. Bo is met with a range of expressions, from dismissal to amusement to the ever-predictable lust. A sweaty man from Six directs a particularly creepy leer her way.

It’s better than Asanka’s reception; clearly the other tributes know a lot more about Fae than Bo does, because they’ve already figured out what he is. The stronger of them snicker and look at him with disdain. The weaker are quiet, and their gazes are more a mixture of relief and cold indifference; he’s not a threat to them and they know it. Only one unlikely tribute, the lumbering mountain of a man from Two, offers a genuine smile, as if silently apologizing for the rest of them.

Then everything goes silent as the head trainer takes her place inside the circle. Regardless of age or species, this is a new experience for all of them, and most seem to understand the weight of it. Even those few who don’t—the pair of tributes from One, the smug redhead from Four—are quiet, limiting themselves to poorly concealed smirks.

As she listens to the head trainer explain the different skill stations, Bo takes an opportunity to examine her competition. Most are fairly young, or at least appear to be; the men from Seven, Eight and Nine, and the woman from Three seem to be the exceptions.

Not that appearance matters; Dyson warned her not to trust her eyes, since most Fae have some sort of camouflage. Of course, he wouldn’t give her any hints as to what species she’s going up against—only told her to look for clues, and that he would quiz her later. Ass.

Some tributes, at least, had outward characteristics that hinted at what their powers might be. The girl from Eight seems to lower the temperature of the room by her mere presence, if the distinctly blue tinge to her lips isn’t clue enough; meanwhile, the man from Seven seems to be growing grass in place of a beard.

The blonde from Two catches Bo’s gaze as it passes by, raises her eyebrow in some vague threat. Something sours in Bo’s stomach, and she drops her eyes—but not before glimpsing the condescending smirk on the blonde’s face.

Soon enough, the head trainer finishes her speech and releases them to the skill stations. Bo remains where she is, gathering her bearings as the other tributes all flock to one station or another.

Well, most of the other tributes. She manages to contain a groan as the creep from Six sidles up to her.

“Hey girl,” he greets, swaying in a way that is decidedly not sexy. Bo would know; she likes to think herself a kind of expert in the field. His smirk is more sleazy than alluring as he leans in conspiratorially. “You ever try Choga sweat?”

Bo grimaces, trying not to be too obvious as she takes a step back. “What’s a Choga?”

His hand flies to his chest, as though she’s just insulted every single one of his ancestors. “Wha—girl, Choga is _me_. In the flesh,” he leers, raking his eyes up and down her form. “Though I definitely prefer yours.”

“Is that your name or your species?” Bo asks, crossing her arms over her chest. She needs a shower after just being this close to him.

Choga tuts, shakes his head. “Why you focusing on the wrong details? I’m telling you, I can give you a serious boost in the arena. All it takes is a lick.” He waggles his eyebrows and extends his arm; a thin sheen of sweat glistens under the flourescent lights. Bo flinches away, but he’s already jerking his arm back as though it’s some priceless treasure. “Whaddya say, huh? Alliance? You watch my back, I’ll watch yours? You protect me, I give you my super virile man sweat?”

An unexpected pang of sympathy tugs at Bo. There’s an underlying tone of desperation in his voice, as though he knows he doesn’t stand a chance. He’s reduced to selling himself as a commodity in hopes of surviving just a little bit longer.

The problem is, Bo can’t be much help to anyone. Her chances may be better than his, but they’re nowhere near favorable.

As Choga opens his mouth to offer another argument, a large beefy hand claps down on his shoulder. “Back off, Choga,” the huge man from Two commands, tugging Choga back with perhaps a little more force than necessary. “It hasn’t even been five minutes since training started. You could at least wait fifteen before you start trying to scam people.”

Choga flings his hand to his chest, using indignance as an excuse to step back and free himself of the man’s grip. “I am hurt. Here I am, on the verge of making a mutually beneficial deal, and you just—”

“You weren’t on the verge of anything,” the man interrupts, stepping firmly between Choga and Bo. “Other than getting your ass kicked. Now get lost.”

Huffing dramatically, Choga backs away, hands raised in mock surrender. “Fine. Your loss. Now some other tribute will get all of this,” he finishes, tracing a finger over the sweaty patch of chest left bare by his collar.

Bo’s nose wrinkles in distaste and pity as he storms away. “Thanks,” Bo says, turning back to face her savior.

“No problem.” The large man shrugs, a sympathetic smile on his face. “This whole thing is hard enough without people trying to con each other.”

Bo takes a moment to study him—the bulging muscles of his arms and chest, the menacing set of his brow. He could be so intimidating, but somehow his presence only puts her at ease. “Well, I owe you one.”

“No you don’t,” he corrects solemnly, then smiles. “But if you want to use it as an excuse not to kill me, then who am I to argue?”

“Believe me,” Bo sighs. “I have no intention of killing you.” Or anyone.

“That’s good to hear,” he says, then extends a hand. “Anyway, I’m—”

“Bruce!” The sharp-faced blonde from Two storms over, smacking him soundly on the arm with the back of her hand. “Get your ass over to the weapons station.” She turns and smiles coldly at Bo. “We don’t have time for charity work.”

“Sorry to cramp your style,” Bo snipes back with a withering glare.

“Oh, honey,” she pouts condescendingly. “You couldn’t if you tried.”

Bruce gives her an apologetic grimace as the blonde drags him away, and then Bo is left alone in the center of the gymnasium. The other tributes have all selected their first station—even Asanka, who is watching diligently as a trainer demonstrates a basic knot. Bo scans the assorted stations, finally approaching a display of several kinds of plants.

She’s got to start somewhere.

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

The oh-so-friendly blonde from Two, Bo learns, is named Tamsin. She trains alongside the other Careers, but Bo notices that she doesn’t participate in the idle gossip the pair from One always seem to be engaged in. It’s strange; what little Bo has seen of her definitely implies that she has the attitude for it, but from what she can tell Tamsin talks to the others only when necessary. Otherwise she keeps to herself, practicing with a frightening array of blades in various shapes and sizes.

A quietly fierce woman from Seven named Wapun claims an axe and a corner of the gymnasium early on; she only leaves at lunchtime and the end of the day, and glowers menacingly at anyone who comes near.

Logan, the musclebound woman from Six, spends an hour or so lifting weights on her own before the redhead from Four—Nora—approaches and speaks to her in hushed tones, gesturing to the weapons stations. Logan follows her pointed gaze, smirking agreeably as she assesses the rest of the Careers. After a moment she nods and drops the barbell she was lifting back onto the rack; the deafening clang echoes throughout the large room.

Vidar, the male tribute from Eleven, attempts valiantly to pay attention to the trainer demonstrates a meditation technique designed to focus the body and mind; his eyes keep dropping to the floor, and when he does look up there’s a quiet despair in his expression, like he’d give anything to be somewhere else.

Bo can sympathize. Meanwhile, Vidar’s female counterpart Marija trains tirelessly at the hand-to-hand station; she must like to get up close and personal, which is reason enough to avoid her.

After a full day of learning the basics of surviving in the wilderness, Bo’s pretty confident that at least she won’t freeze to death. If it were just her against the elements, she’d have a decent chance of surviving.

Unfortunately, a full day of watching the other tributes train has proved that nature is the least of her problems.

“You’re going to have to learn to fight, Bo.” Dyson has that look on his face, that exasperated “I know better than you so just do what I say” look that’s never gotten him the intended response.

Never one to disappoint, Bo stiffens instantly. “I know how to fight,” she says in the vain hope that Dyson will drop the subject.

It doesn’t work, naturally. “Bar brawls aren’t the same thing,” he replies, deadly serious. “You need a weapon.”

The thought makes her flinch. “I only need a weapon if I want to kill someone,” she points out stubbornly. “I don’t.”

Dyson’s hands clench into fists, pressing hard into the table. “Damn it, Bo, you might not have a choice!”

“Whoa!” Kenzi shoots to her feet, glaring down Dyson from across the table. While everyone else cleared out after supper, she hung around; it’s like she knew Bo would need her. “Back off, wolfy. Scaring the shit out of her isn’t going to help anyone.”

“And letting her stay ignorant is?” Dyson snarls, shoving out of his chair and stalking toward Kenzi. “If I let her walk into that arena unprepared, I might as well be killing her myself! She’s—”

“ _She’s_ right here,” Bo cuts in icily, standing and insinuating herself between them. Behind her, Kenzi takes a step back and sighs in relief. “And for the record, I may not know exactly what I’m walking into, but I doubt it could be worse than what I’m already imagining.” The words break in her throat, and she swallows hard. “That doesn’t change the fact that I won’t let myself become a—” _monster_ , she almost says, but the word strikes too deep, “—a killer.”

Dyson’s hands clamp down around Bo’s arms. “And when your back is to the wall, a knife or who knows what else at your throat? What then?” he growls, fingers digging into her biceps. “You know you can’t always rely on your powers to get you out of a fight, and the stakes have never been higher. It is kill or be killed in there, Bo.”

There’s a raw desperation in his voice—Bo’s not sure if he wants to kiss her or strangle her, and accordingly can’t figure out whether to be scared or turned on; she settles for glaring stubbornly. “I guess you don’t need to train me then.”

His brow tightens, his teeth flash, and for a second it looks like he might be on the verge of shifting. She’s never seen him do it in person, but she’s watched the video of his games; it’s not a sight she can easily forget. Panic clutches at her ribs as his fingers dig in harder—is she imagining it, or are his nails sharper than they were a moment ago?

He releases her with a frustrated snarl and storms out of the room, leaving her to collapse against the edge of the table and catch her breath.

“Um, don’t hit me Bo-Bo, but he kinda has a point.”

Bo glares at Kenzi, sharp and disbelieving.

“Not about the killing!” Kenzi throws up her hands in self-defense. “I totally get where you are on that, and you go girl,” she says, flashing two thumbs up. She grimaces, twists her hands together anxiously. “But…it probably wouldn’t hurt to get some pointers on fighting.”

“But—”

“No, just hear me out, okay?” Kenzi reaches out to rest her hands on Bo’s shoulders, gentle and soothing where Dyson’s were rough. “My cousin Dmitri—sweetest boy you’ll ever meet.” She pauses, frowns. “Okay, that’s a lie. He’s a little shit, but never violent, right? Well he pulled some stupid shit, and ended up in a bad situation. There was a gun, and he was trying to keep it away from this other guy; but he’d never seen a gun before, let alone _used_ one. Long story short, some innocent schmuck ended up dead, and Dmitri’s locked up with a death on his conscience, all because he didn’t know what he was doing.”

Bo pales, one thought screaming louder than all the rest. “Do you think they’ll have guns in there?”

Kenzi shrugs. “Probably not. It’d be over too quickly. They like their drama.” Belatedly, she notices the terrified expression on Bo’s face and sighs. “Look, what I’m saying is…if you don’t know how to fight, you might kill someone just trying to defend yourself. You’ve got a better shot if you know how to fight them off.”

“I…hadn’t thought about it like that,” Bo admits.

Pulling Bo into a sideways hug, Kenzi preens. “What would you do without me?”

She’s only known Kenzi for a day, but already Bo’s dreading the day she enters the arena and has to find out.

***

Her back hits the mat hard, knocking the air from her lungs. A blade comes to rest at her throat while her hand is slammed against the ground, her own weapon falling from her grip.

Bo lets out a frustrated sigh. Not again. Her trainer looms over her, straddling her hips in a way that makes it hard to focus on training. The fact that he’s one of the few people—human or Fae—that’s not afraid to touch her doesn’t help matters.

“You need to get out of your head,” he scolds, sitting back on his heels and sheathing his practice weapon. “Stop thinking about what you’re doing and just react.”

“Maybe it’d be easier for her if you started in that position.”

Glaring past her trainer, Bo finds Tamsin leaning casually against a nearby support beam, taking a long pull from a water bottle. It’s clear that Bo is starting to have a serious problem when she catches herself watching beads of sweat slide down Tamsin’s throat, over her collarbone. She _really_ needs to feed.

“Sounds like someone’s looking for a show,” Bo retorts, forcing her hunger to the back of her mind.

Tamsin scoffs. “You wish.”

The trainer rises to his feet, offering Bo a hand up. “Again.”

He gives Tamsin a stern glare as he helps Bo to her feet; tributes aren’t supposed to interfere in others’ training. As a Career, Tamsin can hardly claim ignorance—but she does seem to have a thing for testing boundaries.

Holding her practice knife aloft, Bo tries to focus on her trainer and nothing else. In a way, Tamsin did her a favor; it’s easier to do now that she’s a bit angry.

This time Bo catches sight of the oncoming knife in time to duck out of the way. She twists around to give his back a shove, adding to the momentum of his attack; he lets out a pained grunt as he lands elbows-first on the mat.

She drops to his side, rolling him over to examine the damage. His elbows are warm to the touch and bright red, but nothing appears broken. “I’m so sorry! Are you all right?”

With a quiet scoff, Tamsin rolls her eyes and walks away.

“Don’t be sorry,” the trainer chides, waving off her offer of help and sitting up. His expression is serious, a little impatient. “That’s what I need from you. It’s what you’re going to need in there. If you want to survive, you’re going to have to hurt people.”

Bo forces a smile and pretends the thought doesn’t make her sick. 


	9. Chapter 9

When supper passes without incident, Bo thinks she might have managed to go a full day without arguing with Dyson. He’s been avoiding her all day, which would piss her off if she weren’t so glad for the reprieve.

Naturally, he can’t let the streak go unchallenged. Before Bo can escape back to the relative safety of her quarters, Dyson reaches out and grabs her elbow to hold her back.

Bo flinches away so fast that she almost loses her balance; she takes a few steps back to steady herself.

He has the decency to look ashamed, at least. He takes a cautious step forward, his posture deliberately non-threatening. “Bo, I’m sorry about last night.”

The memory of his hands clamped tight around her arms makes Bo’s heart jump into her throat. The training uniforms have sleeves down to the elbow, so he has no way of knowing about the bruises that linger on her skin because she hasn’t been able to feed. “You kinda scared me,” she says, half admission and half accusation.

His frown deepens, guilt shining in his eyes. “I was scared, too,” he admits quietly. “I still am, but you _know_ I would never hurt you.”

He’s so earnest that she wants to believe him, but last night she wasn’t so sure. “That’s what I thought.”

“Bo, I just—” Dyson’s hands clench at his sides, and Bo takes an instinctive step back. He forces his fists to open, forces an even tone. “I don’t want to lose you. I-I need you to take this seriously.”

A bitter laugh rises in her throat. “ _I am_. I think it’s you who’s not taking _me_ seriously.” Summoning her nerve, Bo steps into Dyson’s space. “Apology accepted,” she says curtly. “But just so you know? If you ever cross that line again, it’ll be the last time you touch me.”

“Bo-Bo!” Kenzi picks the perfect moment to interject, slipping an arm around Bo’s waist in a show of solidarity. “You didn’t forget about our session, did you?”

Dyson frowns. “What session?”

His confusion is understandable; as far as Bo knows there is no session—but she’s not about to tell him that. “Right.” She nods, slinging her arm over Kenzi’s shoulders. “I completely spaced. We should do that.”

“What session?” Dyson repeats, impatient.

Kenzi shoots him a look of disbelief. “Uh, brainstorming, what else? We have to go over style choices for the big training review tomorrow.”

His frown deepens, confusion settling on his brow. “She’ll be in her training uniform, like everyone else.”

“Excuse _you_.” Kenzi flings her free hand to her chest in offense. “There is a lot you can say with the right hair and makeup.”

“You heard the lady,” Bo says quickly, offering an insincere shrug as Kenzi starts pulling her away.

Once inside her quarters, Bo flops onto her bed, sighing heavily in an agonizing mixture of frustration and relief.

The mattress shifts beside her, and then Kenzi’s hand is warm on her shoulder. “You doing okay there, Bo-Bo?”

It’s tempting to shrug her off, to spout off some generically positive response, but she can’t quite manage it when even _Kenzi’s_ touch is sparking lust in her. When a succubus starts having unwanted sexual feelings, there’s definitely something wrong. “I’ve been better,” she admits, risking a glance in Kenzi’s direction.

“Okay, what are you…” Kenzi gestures toward Bo’s face, an uncertain look on her face. “What is that you’re doing there, with your eyes?”

With her cheeks burning the way they are, Bo hardly needs further confirmation; nevertheless, a look into Kenzi’s eyes reveals a faintly glowing blue reflection. “Sorry.” Her eyes dart away as she rolls back onto her side, letting Kenzi’s hand fall onto the comforter. “It happens when I get too hungry.”

“Uh, dude. We just had supper.”

Bo chuckles. “Not that kind of hungry.”

“Oh!” Realization dawns on Kenzi’s face, and her eyes go wide. “Oh, well. You know, I’d love to help, but—” She gestures toward her bicep. “I got all my shots, so…”

“Thanks anyway,” Bo retorts, rolling her eyes affectionately. “I just wish the person who _can_ help me wasn’t such a jerk.”

“He definitely lacks subtlety,” Kenzi notes dryly. Her voice softens. “But I think he does really care about you.” Her hands fly up in defense of Bo’s sharp glare. “Okay, okay—we’re being mad right now. Got it. What a _jerk_.” A smile tugs at Bo’s lips, and Kenzi rushes on before it can fade. “So. New subject. How did training go today?”

The smile vanishes. Bo wants to find something, anything—just one thing to be hopeful about, but another day training has only made her more sure that she doesn’t stand a chance.

Kenzi’s face scrunches in sympathy. “That bad, huh?”

“Well, I’m not worried about killing anyone anymore,” Bo offers with false optimism. She leaves out the part where she doesn’t think she’ll live long enough for it to be an issue, but Kenzi’s expression tells her it doesn’t need to be said. “I don’t know, Kenz,” she sighs. “The trainer is one thing—it’s his job not to hurt me. Those other tributes? Some of them _want_ to.”

She thinks of Wapun, slashing savagely at the air with her axe; of the Careers smirking coldly as they watch each other demonstrate new and interesting ways to kill someone. How can she compete with that?

“Hey.” Kenzi returns her hand to Bo’s shoulder, rubbing gently. “You don’t have to want to hurt them, Bo. You just have to want to survive.”

Bo meets Kenzi’s eyes. “At what cost?”

***

Morning comes all too soon, marking the third and final day of training. With things with Dyson the way they are, and the threat of imminent death looming over her, Bo is a mess of hunger and nerves—so when Dyson sits her down after breakfast to talk about a strategy for her private session, she’s not sure if she’d rather punch him or kiss him.

While she’s trying to decide, he leans back and sighs. “Bo, this is serious. You need to pay attention.”

Rather than admit she has no idea what he’s just been talking about, Bo rolls her eyes. “Why? The Gamemakers are going to think the same thing everyone else does,” she says bitterly, glaring down at her hands on the table. “Best case scenario, I’m a joke. Worst case, cannon fodder.”

Dyson’s hand settles over hers, warm and a little uncertain. His other hand tucks under her chin, guiding her to meet his solemn gaze. “So show them what you really are.”

Her stomach twists at the intensity of his words. “You said _not_ to do that."

He shakes his head and sits back, folding his hands on the table. “Different game, different rules. The Gamemakers need to see what you can do if they’re going to give you a good score, and a good score is the best way to get sponsors.”

“So what do you suggest, I bang the chi out of all of them?”

“Even if that were possible, I wouldn’t recommend it.” Dyson smirks. “But you’re more than sex, Bo. You just have to prove it to them.”

Somewhere in the back of Bo’s mind, a plan begins to take shape.

***

When Bo finally saunters into the gymnasium, the Gamemakers are bloated with food and ennui. Few even bother looking up at her, and those who do give her no more than a cursory glance. Their blatant dismissal pisses Bo off, but she can definitely use it. Striding over to the weapons table, she closes her hand around a small knife. Glancing up, she confirms that no one is watching before attaching the sheath to the belt of her training uniform, at the small of her back.

The metal chair squeaks loudly as she separates it from the stack, drawing a couple of idly curious looks as she drags it to what she’s designated center stage. A few more pairs of eyes turn her way as she sets up a training dummy in the chair, facing away from the Gamemakers.

Bo steps back and closes her eyes, starts swaying her hips to a rhythm only she can hear. It’s harder to do this without background music, or the right outfit—but if there’s one thing she knows, it’s seduction. The sultry swing of her hips is as natural to her as breathing, and it’s almost unconscious how she draws her lower lip between her teeth, peeking up at the Gamemakers through her lashes.

By the time she starts to incorporate the dummy, nearly all of the Gamemakers—regardless of gender—are at least casting surreptitious glances her way. She reaches past the dummy’s head, one hand bracing against the chair on each side as she straddles its lap. With her heels digging into the floor, Bo leans back so the Gamemakers can see past the dummy as she inches up her shirt.

The longer it goes on, though, the more they lose interest. Only one or two are still watching as she slips the shirt over her head, displaying a lacy black bra and breasts that have never before received anything but lustful reverence.

Bo looks down at the dummy to conceal her scowl, takes a slow breath. She’s not done yet; they won’t be ignoring her when she’s done with them. She focuses hard on keeping up her rhythm while she slips one hand behind her back, closing around the hilt of her knife. A sultry glance toward her audience confirms that they’re not paying enough attention to have noticed.

Increasing her tempo, Bo writhes atop the dummy, her free hand gripping the side of its neck as she pretends to feed from it. She pulls away with a breathy moan, glares up at the Gamemakers with cheeks flushed with anger rather than lust; it's not like they can tell the difference anyway.

Bo rises to her feet, plucking her shirt from the ground and pulling it over her head. The Gamemakers are once again entirely absorbed in their own trivial conversations, but their attention returns to Bo when the back of the chair collides with the floor, metal clanging dully against the mat. The dummy slumps to the side, but the knife sticking out of its chest is clearly visible.

“Thanks for your consideration,” Bo deadpans. She gives them a mocking little bow before whirling and storming out.

***

Shit.

It seemed like a good idea before, when Bo put the plan together in her mind; now, alone in the elevator, she’s not so sure. They’re probably laughing at her right now, taking odds on just how quickly she’ll die.

And really, who is she fooling? Even if she miraculously survives the Games, she’s still a slave. There’s no freedom in her future, no future really to speak of. She’ll be trapped like Dyson, forced to watch her own tributes march off to their deaths.

There is no winning here.

She tenses as the elevator doors slide open to reveal Dyson waiting for her. Her stomach lurches uneasily as she brushes past him, beelining for her bedroom. Once inside rests her forehead against the closed door, shoulders shaking with anger and fear.

Dyson’s knuckles rap gently against the door. “Bo,” he murmurs. “Wanna talk about it?”

The last thing Bo wants to do is relive what just happened. Or maybe the second last—right now the idea of being alone seems a lot worse.

She lets him in, and he sits quietly next to her on the edge of the bed as she relates what happened. He’s fighting a smile by the time she’s done, and she smacks his chest sullenly. “Don’t laugh. I know it was stupid.”

He shakes his head, his smile only growing. “It’s not stupid, Bo,” he chuckles. “It’s just so _you_.”

Bo sighs, rolling her eyes halfheartedly. “I’m not sure ‘being myself’ is a workable battle strategy.”

“Hey.” Dyson tucks a finger under Bo’s chin, forcing her eyes up to his. “It’s better than being someone else. You’re the only person who can get you through this.”

Breathing heavily, Bo reaches up to cradle his hand against her cheek. She’s hungry, and scared, and frustrated—and he’s _here_ , familiar and comforting and warm. “Doesn’t mean I don’t want help,” she murmurs, leaning in to close the distance between them.

At first he kisses her back, his fingers sliding back to tangle in her hair. His beard scratches at her cheeks, his free hand grasps at her hip, and she’s _so close_ to getting his shirt off when he pulls away with a start.

“We can’t, Bo,” he pants, fumbling with the buttons of his shirt. “We’ve been over this.”

“Right,” Bo grumbles, choking back the need clawing at her throat.

Dyson studies her for a moment, something closed-off and inscrutable in his eyes; then he ducks his head, slipping out of the room as Bo throws herself back onto the bed with a frustrated sigh. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I've gotten pretty terrible at responding to your comments (lots of icky RL issues mucking everything up) but I promise you each and every one makes me do a little flaily dance in my seat. JSYK. I'm so thrilled that others are enjoying this little obsession of mine. Thank you all so much! <3


	10. Chapter 10

The knock comes all too soon, or at least it feels that way. Bo doesn’t realize she’s fallen asleep until she’s prying her eyes open, grumbling something she hopes sounds like an appropriate response. Her head is throbbing, and the hollow ache inside her is getting worse.

A surge of irritation prods her a little more awake. She gets that Dyson has issues or whatever, but does he have to be a selfish ass right _now_? She can’t remember the last time she went more than a day without a feed; a surprising number of District Twelve’s Fae citizens were more than willing to exchange a little chi for the kind of pleasure she could give them.

Now her body is loudly protesting the sudden deprivation, and she just woke up from a dream that involved a number of other tributes lined up in collars like an all-you-can-suck chi buffet. The last thing she needs is her gorgeous human—and therefore _off_ the menu—Escort creaking open her door and slipping inside.

“Hey,” Lauren murmurs, taking a few hesitant steps toward the bed. “I-I’m sorry to wake you, but it’s almost time for supper.”

Bo pulls herself up to sit back against the head of the bed, pulling her knees to her chest. “I’m not hungry.” Need pulses through her, blatantly contradicting her words. When she sees Lauren’s eyes widen in shock, she knows her own must be glowing blue. “Well, not for food,” she amends with a lazily wanton smirk. She can’t feed off of Lauren due to the Vaccine, but something about seeing the human blushing like a schoolgirl—and knowing she’s the reason for it—is satisfying in its own way.

Lauren ducks her head, crosses her arms over her stomach as she leans back against the wall. “I, uh, heard you put on quite a show.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Bo groans, her mood plummeting. “I made myself look like a bigger joke than everyone already thinks I am.”

“I don’t know about that,” Lauren argues reassuringly. She pushes away from the wall, sits on the edge of Bo’s bed; there’s something endearing about how she perches, torn somewhere between maintaining a professional distance and leaning in to offer Bo more tangible comfort. “It was certainly a unique performance,” she offers with a hopeful smile.

“Ugh, don’t tease me right now.” Bo pushes playfully at Lauren’s hip with her bare foot. “My pride is wounded enough.”

“It shouldn’t be.” Lauren’s expression is solemn now, an earnest glint in warm brown eyes. “You’re in an impossible situation, Bo. The fact that you’re even trying at all is—is incredible.”

“Careful,” Bo warns, a smile tugging at her mouth. “I might start to think you like me.”

Lauren’s cheeks flush predictably, but she keeps a tenuous grip on her composure. “I admire you,” she admits. “Every other Fae in that square was going to let that little girl die, but you stepped up. You offered to take the place of a girl you’d never even met. It’s the bravest, most selfless thing I’ve ever seen.”

The near-reverence in Lauren’s voice makes something twist in Bo’s stomach, but it’s not enough to distract her from the words themselves. She shrugs, pulling her knees tighter to her chest. “Brave or not, I’ll still probably be dead in a week.”

She can see the rebuttal jump to Lauren’s lips, but before the words can leave her mouth Lauren frowns instead, her brow creasing with frustration.

“What?” Bo asks, her curiosity temporarily overriding her mortal gloom.

“I just…” Lauren trails off, running shaking hands through her hair. They clench into fists as they drop back to her lap. “This is just so damn _barbaric_.”

Bo’s starting to wonder if _any_ of the Capitol staff actually support the games. “So why work for them?” she asks, sliding forward to sit next to Lauren at the edge of the bed.

Lauren shrugs like her shoulders weigh a thousand pounds. “I wasn’t really given a choice.”

It’s a wonder Bo didn’t realize it before: Lauren is as trapped as she is. “Fae aren’t the only ones the Capitol keeps as slaves,” she murmurs.

“I can’t complain,” Lauren says quickly, almost guiltily—like she expects Bo to judge her for not loving her life. “Not-not when there are people a lot worse off.”

“And you called _me_ selfless,” Bo teases, knocking Lauren’s shoulder with her own. Lauren looks up, and Bo finds herself distracted by the bashful tug of her mouth.

She doesn’t realize she’s leaning in until Lauren’s eyes begin to widen. Bo’s tongue snakes out to moisten her lips, and she’s all too aware of the way Lauren’s gaze darts nervously down to follow the motion. Lauren is conflicted, Bo can see that much in her aura, but she’s also not backing away.

Their lips are a breath away from touching when Lauren stiffens and pulls back. “Bo, I—I can’t,” she attempts, then draws a shaky breath before trying again. “We shouldn’t…”

“But you want to,” Bo points out. She doesn’t try to move in again, but she does quirk an eyebrow as she traces the glowing edges of Lauren’s aura, the undeniable evidence of attraction and desire. “I can see it.”

To her credit, Lauren doesn’t try to deny it. “We can’t always get what we want,” she says sadly. Before Bo can argue further she rises to her feet, smoothing her skirt anxiously. “Um, I-I’ll let you get ready for supper.”

Bo waits until the door closes behind Lauren to groan in frustration. The super-strong wolf shifter who could easily sate her hunger flat-out refuses, and the gorgeous human that is at the very least interested is completely immune to her feeding.

If life hates her this much, maybe death won’t be so bad.

***

Supper is quiet and tense, and afterward they move to the sitting room to watch the announcement of training scores. Photos and numbers flash across the screen, but it’s hard to focus with all the tension in the room; not to mention the empty feeling gnawing at Bo’s insides that supper didn’t come close to satisfying.

A large five flashes on screen beneath a picture of Vidar from Eleven, then both number and photo disappear. Bo’s picture pops onto the screen, and anxiety tears at her stomach. A high training score is a must to get sponsors, and a sponsor’s gift can make the difference between life and death.

She gets an eleven. Out of twelve. It’s so far removed from even her highest hopes that she can’t manage anything but a bitter laugh. “That’s a joke, right?”

“You must have impressed them.” Lauren offers an encouraging smile—from her seat in an arm chair on the opposite side of the room. She’s been clumsy and obvious in her attempts at avoidance all evening.

Dyson scoffs. “More likely they want people to sponsor her so she won’t die in the first five minutes. The longer she lasts, the higher the entertainment value.”

The words are cold and biting, not least of all because they could very easily be true. “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Bo snaps caustically.

A shrill whine cuts through the tension, and Bo looks back at the screen; the number four is flashing below Asanka’s picture. Asanka himself resembles nothing more than a terrified child.

“Hey.” Bo slides over on the couch, resting a hand on his trembling forearm. His skin warms under her touch, glowing faintly as she gives him a small dose of her charm—just enough to soothe his nerves. “The score isn’t everything. We still have the interviews tomorrow night; you can just make them take you seriously.” She knocks her shoulder against his, smiling as she catches his gaze. The corners of his mouth twitch in response.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Dyson sneers. “They don’t take any Fae seriously. We’re nothing but entertainment for them. Remember that, and you’ll get a lot farther in there.”

Bo turns away from Asanka, pinning Dyson with a cold glare. “You’re a really shitty mentor, you know that?”

“Speaking of the interviews,” Lauren segues awkwardly, rising stiffly to her feet. Her eyes dart nervously between Bo and Dyson. “We all need to be up pretty early to prepare, so why don’t we call it a night?”

Asanka leaves quickly, eager to escape the brewing tension. Bo moves to follow, but stops when she hears Lauren call out again.

“Not you, Dyson. We need to talk.”

Stopping just outside the sitting room, Bo waits for the automatic door to close before inching her way back toward it. Cupping a hand around her ear, she presses close to the door to listen in.

“What do you want?” Dyson’s voice is an impatient snarl.

“Bo’s right. You’re supposed to be building up her confidence, not tearing it down.”

“Why, so she’ll give a good show? Is that what your boss wants? Or are you hoping she’ll win so you have another powerful Fae to experiment on?”

A frown tugs at Bo’s mouth. Dyson hasn’t said much about the time he spent in the Capitol a few years back; was Lauren somehow involved?

“Dyson—” Lauren cuts off, huffs. “This isn’t about you or me, or the past. This is about Bo. She already doesn’t think she has a chance, she doesn’t need you reinforcing the idea.”

“She _doesn’t_ have a chance,” Dyson hisses. “Even if she wins, she’s still the Capitol’s slave. That doesn’t end when you move into the Victors’ Village. I’d know,” he finishes with a growl.

“So you’d rather she die alone, thinking no one believes in her?”

“She might be better off.”

Bo pulls away from the door, unable to listen to any more. Tears sting at her eyes, and she wipes at them in frustration. She doesn’t know what to believe, what to want, what to _do_.

She’s never been more lost.

 


	11. Chapter 11

The situation doesn’t seem any less impossible in the morning. As much as she wants to hate Dyson right now, he’s probably right about the reason for her high score—the Gamemakers want her to put on a good show for them. Like she needs _more_ pressure.

Breakfast is a quiet, tense affair. Time is running out, and they all know it. Tomorrow they’ll wake up early, spend the day getting dressed and painted and styled; then they’ll be herded on stage, one after the other, like the powerless chattel they are.

It’s Lauren who breaks the silence, as the servants clear away the dishes. “All right, we’ve got a pretty full day today, so we should, uh, get started.” She looks at Dyson and lifts her eyebrows, prodding him to speak.

“You’ll each have four hours with me for content,” he grudgingly offers. “Then four with Lauren for presentation. After that, your stylists will take over until it’s time for your interviews.”

Bo suppresses a groan. Her hunger has progressed to a constant, throbbing pain between her eyes; four hours of putting up with Dyson’s shitty attitude is not what she needs right now.

As if he read her mind, Dyson speaks once more. “Bo, you’re with me first.”

She doesn’t have the energy to argue, so she follows him into the sitting room. She tucks herself into a corner of the couch, crossing her arms in weary defiance. He can avoid her if he wants, but she’s not going to make it easier for him.

To her surprise, he sinks down onto the couch next to her; he rests his arms on his knees, stares down at his hands. “I’m sorry about last night,” he says, quiet and serious. “I was out of line.”

“You should apologize to Asanka,” Bo retorts. “I already knew you were an ass.”

Dyson’s hands clench into fists. “Damn it Bo, I’m trying here.”

“Excuse me if I don’t run out to get you a gold star.”

He looks up at her with angry words on his lips, but when he sees her rubbing at the sharpening ache between her eyes, the words vanish. “Are you okay?”

“I’m starving.” The confession tumbles from Bo’s lips with a humiliating amount of desperation, and she glares at him with extra venom to make up for it. “Not that you care.”

“Damn it,” Dyson curses quietly to himself. When he looks back up at Bo, the anger in his eyes has turned to concern. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Bo has to scoff at that. “Uh, I think I made it pretty clear what I was after.”

He sighs. “Yeah, but I thought you were just…” he trails off, realizing too late where his words are leading.

“Just what?” Bo narrows her eyes. “Just a crazed nympho who can’t get enough of your rugged charm? Nice to know how you really see me.”

Dyson settles his hands onto her shoulders, painstakingly gentle though she can feel the effort it takes in the stiff set of his fingers. “That is _not_ how I see you.”

“Could have fooled me.”

“Bo…” He shakes his head, sighs again. His expression is guarded when he locks eyes with her again; he’s still holding back, even as his palm slides up to cover her cheek. “Kiss me.”

“Don’t be a jerk, Dyson.” Bo moves to pull away, and another palm comes up to cup her other cheek. Guarded as they are, Dyson’s eyes hold a glint of sincerity.

“I’m serious. You need to focus if you want to learn anything. You won’t be able to do that if all you can think about is how hungry you are.” It’s good logic—cold maybe, impersonal, but sound enough. Like he’s trying to convince himself as well as her. “Just…kiss me. You need a snack.”

“I need a lot more than that,” Bo can’t help but retort—but before he can change his mind, she curls her fingers around the collar of his shirt and tugs him in. She’d love to refuse the crumbs he’s offering, but after four days of starvation they’re looking more like a five course meal.

His lips part passively for her at first, but as she starts to draw long, deep pulls of his chi he begins to respond almost on instinct. By the time he pushes her away, she’s half-straddling his lap and all but two of his shirt’s buttons are undone.

“That’s enough, Bo.”

It’s not. It’s not anywhere _near_ enough, even if the ache between her eyes has eased. She can feel his heart beating against her palm, the heat of his bare skin under her fingertips; she needs so much more than that little taste.

“We need to get started on strategy,” Dyson says, fingers working at rebuttoning his shirt. “This interview won’t be easy. Vex is a conniving bastard, and he’s not loyal to anyone—not the Capitol, not the Fae. You need to be careful.”

Bo sinks back into her corner, closing her eyes to savor the newfound lack of pain. “What’s he gonna do, kill me with questions?”

“There are worse things than death, Bo.”

Something in his tone coaxes Bo’s eyes open; the haunted look on his face twists in her gut. “Like what Lauren did to you?”

He tenses instantly. “We’re not here to talk about me.”

“Maybe I want to.”

“Bo—”

“No, really.” Bo sits up and leans forward, pinning him with a suspicious gaze. “You obviously have some pretty serious issues with her, but the worst you can say to warn me off is ‘you can’t feed from her’? What aren’t you telling me?”

Dyson shrugs away the hand she tries to rest on his shoulder. “It’s not important.”

“It’s important to me.”

“It shouldn’t be.” He turns back to Bo, reaches out to squeeze her hand. “Bo, you need to focus right now. Your life depends on it. You can’t be worrying about me or my past.”

Either his earnest words have hit their mark, or Bo is just tired of fighting him; even she isn’t sure. “Fine,” she sighs. “Tell me more about this ‘Vex’.”

 

***

 

Try as she might, Bo can’t manage to see whatever it is in Lauren that made Dyson hate her so much. The way her hands jump through the air to punctuate her words while she paces back and forth on the far end of Bo’s room? Might be the single most endearing thing Bo has ever seen.

“…so I don’t think presentation is going to be much of a problem.” Lauren clears her throat, offers a crooked smile. “I mean, sex appeal is kind of your super power, right?”

Bo can’t help but return the smile. “Something like that.”

A contemplative glint lingers in Lauren’s eyes as she opens her mouth, drawing breath to speak. “Can I ask you a question?” she asks after a moment of hesitation.

“If I can ask you one first,” Bo counters. At Lauren’s curious glance, she continues. “I’m pretty sure I heard Dyson call you ‘Doctor’. Why?”

“I am a doctor.” Lauren’s smile tightens around the edges, her eyes drop to the floor. “Or I was.”

“What happened?”

Lauren’s arms cross tight over her stomach as she leans back against a dresser. “I-it’s really not something I can talk about.” There’s none of Dyson’s stubborn refusal in Lauren’s eyes, no indication that she’s doing this to protect Bo; there’s only resignation, and a potent spike of fear.

“Hey,” Bo says softly, perched on the edge of her bed. She waits for Lauren to look up, then smiles. “You don’t have to.”

“Thank you.” Relief is written all over Lauren’s face.

“Anyway, didn’t you have a question for me?”

“Yes!” Lauren brightens, grateful for the distraction. “I—well, honestly, I don’t know where to start. You’re the first succubus I’ve ever met. There’s so much I haven’t been able to learn—”

“Why Lauren,” Bo teases, quirking an eyebrow. “Are you trying to _study_ me?”

“No!” The protest comes a little too quickly, sounds a little too defensive. Lauren sighs. “I—well, yes. I mean, succubi are so rare, but it’s—that’s not all I care about,” she insists.

Bo pulls her lower lip between her teeth, peers up at Lauren through her lashes. “What else do you care about?”

The silence feels heavier than it should; they only met a few days ago. Lauren clears her throat, fidgets with her fingers. “Right now, finding out as much about you as I can in the next three hours.”

It sounds almost completely professional—almost. Bo grins. “Ask away, Doc.”

 

***

 

“Damn,” Kenzi whistles the next day, as she watches her makeup team work. “You have shit for luck, girl.”

“Don’t I know it,” Bo groans. “I’m a succubus who can’t get laid to save her life—literally.”

Inexplicably, Bo has managed to find in Kenzi a confidante—a friend, like the ones she had back in high school, before Kyle and her powers and…everything. She never expected to trust anyone in the Capitol, but something about Kenzi feels warm and familiar and solid.

Kenzi tilts her head, sucking thoughtfully on a lollipop. “Maybe it’s like, the universe’s way of getting back at you.” She gestures with the candy to punctuate her words. “You know, since you flouted destiny or whatever by volunteering. But they couldn't punish you _too_ badly, since it was all heroic and shit, so they cursed you with a dysfunctional love life instead.”

“Thanks,” Bo deadpans, rolling her eyes. One of the makeup artists pulls his eyeliner back with a huff, waiting impatiently for her face to relax again. She’s more careful when she speaks again, but inwardly she’s rolling her eyes all over again. “I don’t know what I ever did without your oh-so-wise counsel.”

“Beats me.” Kenzi shrugs. “Anyway, I’m sure your wolf-dude will cave tonight. I mean, he can’t send you into the Games starving, right?”

Bo sighs, her stomach fluttering at the reminder of how little time she has left. “Let’s hope you’re right.” He may be on her shit list right now, but it’s not like she’s swimming in options.

A mischievous smile pulls at Kenzi’s mouth as the makeup team steps away so she can inspect their work. “Honey, after he sees you in the dress _I_ designed for you? He won’t dream of saying no.” 


	12. Chapter 12

Kenzi’s prediction seems completely plausible when Dyson and Lauren meet them backstage; neither can seem to find words right away, and Bo is sure she glimpses a flash of Dyson’s teeth as he steps closer to her.

“Can I talk to you in private?”

Bo’s chest flutters, and she tries not to get her hopes up as he leads her behind some unused set pieces. Not her first choice for a quickie, but beggars can’t be choosers.

He doesn’t protest when she tugs him in for a kiss, wondering a half-second too late if her lipstick is smudgeproof. Kenzi might kill her for this.

When she’s taken a long, thick draw of chi, he nudges her away. “Another snack?” Bo asks, her breathless tone rendering her sneer ineffective.

Dyson nods in confirmation. “You need to be at the top of your game. Vex won’t hold back.”

Bo smirks, hooking intricately manicured fingers in his belt loops and swaying closer. “If you want me at the _top_ of my game, I’ll need a lot more than that.”

He pulls back. Of course he does. “The program is about to start, Bo. It’ll have to be enough.”

She doesn’t get any horrified looks when she comes back, so Bo assumes her makeup must be resilient enough. Kenzi comes over to her, reaching out to make imaginary adjustments to Bo’s dress and hair. When the stage manager calls for the tributes to take their places, Kenzi lets her hands drop onto Bo’s bare shoulders.

“You ready for this, Bo-Bo?” Kenzi asks, concern leaking into her voice.

Drawing a deep breath, Bo sets her shoulders and lifts her chin. “I hope so.”

***

The lights of the stage are blinding, but not bright enough to block out the enormous crowd packed into the City Circle. All over Panem, Bo knows, human and Fae alike will be tuned in to watch the broadcast from homes and community halls. Back in District Twelve, Trick will be watching with Stella at his side, anxious to see that she’s all right; it must kill him that he couldn’t come with her.

Will her mother be watching? It’s required viewing, Bo knows, but she doesn’t think the Peacekeepers will punish an addled old woman for not paying attention to the screen—especially not a human.

Once the tributes are all seated in a wide arc, the interviewer saunters onto the stage. The lights glare off of his black PVC pants, baggy where the thin faux-leather tank top clinging to his chest most definitely is not. A heavy leather jacket covers that, black and red with spikes sticking out of the shoulders. A collar circles his neck—like the ones the servants wear only more personalized, a thick leather band fastened with gleaming steel buckles. The sinister smirk on Vex’s glossy black lips only emphasizes the unsettled feeling Bo gets from looking at him.

The interviews fly by, one after the other. Tamsin is calm and distant, for all that she smiles and grits her teeth through Vex’s needling. Bruce charms Bo along with probably half the audience when he talks about his PhD, his affinity for poetry. Choga sweats and fidgets his way through his three minutes, while Kaz from Seven seems to forget all about the cameras once Vex asks him about his love of nature. Vidar from Eleven doesn’t say much of anything at all.

Finally Asanka is stammering through his final answer, and then he’s being dismissed to rejoin the other tributes.

“And now,” Vex calls out, spreading his arms wide. “Last, but certainly not least, if you know what I mean.” He gestures lewdly at his chest, waggling his eyebrows at the audience. “From District Twelve! Boooooooo Dennis!”

His arms swing to point in her direction, and Bo’s stomach rolls as she rises to her feet. A smattering of applause picks up momentum as she steps forward, showing off the beautiful dress Kenzi designed.

It’s a slinky thing, fastened with a halter at the back of Bo’s neck. The fabric clings and spills over her skin like water, hitched up at one hip to reveal one smooth, lean leg. Laces wind up from her stiletto heels to wrap around her calves, ending in an alluring knot just above her knee. As she steps into the bright circle of light at center stage, the applause roars louder; the intensity of the light sparkles dynamically over the black of her dress, making the fabric glow an electric blue. As she takes the last few steps toward her seat, the blue shifts and flickers like flames.

Before she sits down, Bo remembers Kenzi’s instructions; she looks out at the crowd and calls up the hunger that has become her best friend this week. She can feel her face grow hot and knows that her eyes are glowing as blue as her dress; the effect, Kenzi insisted, was “like being eyebanged by some kind of sex goddess”.

The audience seems to agree—along with Vex, who rakes his eyes over her like he doesn’t know how to feel shame. Maybe he doesn’t. He offers a hand, and Bo reluctantly shakes it; predictably, his middle finger extends to caress the inside of her wrist. She endures it with a forced smile, hiding her relief when he directs her to sit.

“Welcome to the Games, love.” Vex smiles and folds his hands over his stomach. “Now, tell us about yourself. You didn’t grow up in Twelve, did you?”

Dyson was right; he’s not pulling any punches. Bo sucks in a breath. “No, I was sent there when I found out I was Fae.”

Vex nods, like he didn’t already know her answer. He sits forward, taps at his chin with a manicured black fingernail. “Quite a confusing time for a young succubus, just coming into her own,” he leers. There’s a murmur in the crowd, scandalized by the blatant declaration of her species. He pretends to look abashed. “I know, I know, but it’s certainly no secret, right?”

“It was pretty big news,” Bo offers with a tight smile.

“How lost you must have been.” There isn’t even a shred of sincerity in his sympathetic expression. “But the Capitol, generous as they are, allowed your adopted parents to go with you, so you wouldn’t have to be alone.” He presses his hand to his chest, his voice dripping with irony. “That must have been a comfort.”

Bo bites the inside of her cheek, clasps her hands tightly in her lap. It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to strangle him in front of the entire country. “I don’t know if that’s the word I’d use,” she replies stiffly, thinking of her dead father and estranged mother.

Vex laughs like she’s made a clever joke, but there’s a sadistic glint in his eyes. He’s enjoying her discomfort. “So,” he continues, “you’re the closest we’ve ever come to having a tribute from the Capitol. When you go out into the arena, who will you be representing?”

It’s not a question Bo anticipated, and she has to take a few moments to consider it. “I-I don’t think I could choose,” she finally says, offering the audience a coy shrug. “District Twelve is my home now, but the Capitol is where I grew up. They’re both a part of me.”

“Unaligned then, is it? Fascinating.” Vex studies her for a second, and Bo almost thinks he’s being sincere this time. The moment ends quickly, and he changes the subject. “But you’re interesting for another reason too, aren’t you? First volunteer in District Twelve history. What possessed you in that fateful moment?”

This, at least, Bo knows how to talk about. She breathes in, recalling the image of the little girl’s face. “I don’t know, exactly,” she admits. “It wasn’t really a conscious decision. I saw that little girl, saw how scared she was, and I just…I had to do anything I could to protect her.”

“Such nobility,” Vex gushes, angling toward the audience as he clutches his chest again. When he turns back to Bo, there’s something malicious in his smile. “Would it surprise you to know that that ‘little girl’ is an oread, and that she recently celebrated her fifty-sixth birthday?”

Bo reels back as if struck, shock settling cold and heavy in her stomach. Questions race through her mind; could it be true? Does it matter if it is? Would she still have stepped forward if she’d known?

And what kind of person does it make her if the answer is no?


	13. Chapter 13

She’s still brooding over the revelation when there’s a knock on her door, after the servants have cleared away the dishes from the supper she ate alone in her quarters.

“Go away,” Bo groans.

The door creaks open, and Dyson pokes his head in. “I come in peace,” he jokes gently.

Bo narrows her eyes, unamused. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Dyson sighs, pulling the door closed behind him. “Would it have made a difference?” He spreads his hands, cautiously closing the distance between them. When she doesn’t protest, he sinks down to sit next to her on the edge of the bed. “What, you want to take it back now? It doesn’t work that way, Bo.”

“I don’t know,” Bo sputters, exasperated. Tears sting at the corners of her eyes. “But it would have been nice to know that the _little girl_ I was sacrificing myself for was twice my age!”

Breath hitches in Bo’s throat as Dyson’s thumb brushes away a tear. “Vex left out an important detail,” he says. Absurdly, an affectionate smile teases at his lips. “Oreads live for thousands of years. They’re one of the rarer species of Fae whose development has slowed to adjust. She may be older than you thought, Bo, but she’s no less a little girl.”

“Oh.” Bo doesn’t know how to feel—deflated, validated, impossibly naive? In the end, it comes down to fear; a common theme this week. She drops her eyes, reaches up to press his hand to her cheek. “I’m scared, Dyson.”

The quiet admission hangs in the air, raw and pleading. In an instant, Dyson is pulling her close, gathering her to his chest. His breath stutters like he wants to speak, but after several aborted attempts Bo gives up on any words coming out.

Before she knows what’s happening, Dyson’s tilting her chin up; then her senses are filled with him, his tongue in her mouth and his teeth at her lips and his hands strong and firm at her waist. His fingers slide under the hem of her t-shirt, tracing the waistband of her shorts, and she curls her fingers in his hair.

“I thought we’d ‘been over this’,” she mocks, scraping her nails along his scalp.

Dyson shudders, a growl rumbling in his throat. “You’re going to need all the strength you can get in the arena.” His words are warm against her lips, a surrender long awaited. “Let me give you mine.”

It barely takes half a nod before Dyson tugs her close again, pulling her hard against him. With a feral grin, Bo surrenders to the hunger in her blood.

They’ve been together before, countless times, but it’s never been like this. They’ve done rough, they’ve done passionate, but they’ve never done this particular flavor of desperation. Dyson’s fingers dig into her hips hard enough to bruise, his teeth and tongue ravage her neck; it will all heal by the time they’re done, but that doesn’t seem to matter.

The scratches down his back will linger, at least. When it’s over, Bo traces the skin around them with a finger, a lazy smile pulling at her lips as he hisses in response. She expects him to turn toward her, to roll up onto his hip and tug her close for another round. They’ve never stopped at just one before.

Instead he slides away from her, toward the edge of the bed. Bo glares at his back; it’s obvious even without words that he’s already regretting this. “You started it, not me,” she accuses.

He sighs, digging the balls of his hands into his eyes. “I know. God, Bo, I know. I’ve been trying not to for days.”

“Why?” Bo shifts over to rest a hand on his naked shoulder. “Was it so horrible?” she teases.

“Just the opposite.” Dyson’s voice is rough, harsh; is he _crying_? “I was trying to forget how incredible you are. Now it’s only going to hurt more when I have to watch you die.”

Bo pulls her hand back as if burnt. “You still think I can’t do this.” Even if she has a hard time disagreeing, it still stings somehow that he has so little faith in her.

He turns around, reaches out to catch Bo’s arm. “Bo, I didn’t mean—”

She yanks her arm away. “Yeah, I really think you did,” she snaps back, storming to her closet. She pulls on the first t-shirt and pair of sweats she can find, ignoring his continued pleas, then pulls a hoodie around herself and doesn’t look back as she slams her door closed behind her.

***

Bo pushes open the door to the roof, stopping cold in the doorway when she sees the outline of a figure—a dark void amidst all the twinkling lights of the Capitol. She came up here to be alone, but Lauren turns around before she has a chance to slip back inside.

“Sorry,” Bo mutters, blinking back angry tears. “Didn’t think anyone was out here.”

Lauren shrugs, her lips curving into a welcoming smile. “I don’t mind the company, if you want to talk about it.”

She doesn’t know what she wants, what could possibly make any of this even a little bit better. But she doesn’t want to go back downstairs, to Dyson and his apologies and the suffocating knowledge that this might be the last night she’ll ever see. Up here, with the distant sounds of cars and people and _life_ , she can almost pretend the past ten years never happened—that she’s just a carefree teenager again, charming and guileless and human.

“Come on,” Lauren says when Bo doesn’t answer. She nods toward the other end of the roof. “You should see the garden.”

It’s peaceful, in a way that Bo didn’t expect. Hundreds of wind chimes hang from the branches of the trees, their tinkling drowning out all the other sounds of the Capitol, and the sweet, earthy smell of the flowers and soil are comfortingly familiar. Bo drags her fingertips over the bark of one of the trees, then scowls when it only reminds her of how the rough texture felt against her back, when she and Dyson used to sneak out into the woods around District Twelve.

Bo draws a ragged breath, her shoulders sagging as she releases it. “Dyson thinks I’m going to die.”

It takes a moment for Lauren to formulate a response. “He’s a fighter,” she finally offers. “He’s just frustrated because there’s nothing he can hit to make this better.”

In spite of herself, Bo chuckles. “He’s a self-centered jackass, but you’re sweet to defend him.” She turns, narrows her eyes. “How do you know so much about him, anyway?”

Lauren’s expression shifts to resemble a deer in headlights, her mouth opening and closing in repeated attempts to explain.

“Is it really that bad?” Bo presses, after a few such false starts.

“It’s…complicated, Bo.” Lauren’s eyes fix on her fingers, tangling nervously in front of her.

“I’ll find out eventually, you know.” Bo leans in to bump Lauren’s shoulder with hers, a mischievous smile on her lips. “I have my ways.”

Lauren slowly starts to return the smile, glancing up at Bo. “You’ll have to win the Games first,” she points out.

“You want me to win, huh?” Bo teases. “Why, so you can study me, Doctor?”

“Partially,” Lauren admits sheepishly. Her eyes drop again, and her smile turns shy. “Mostly because I kinda like you.”

There’s a flutter in Bo’s stomach at Lauren’s words, but it’s weighted down by the seemingly impossible obstacle looming before her. After tomorrow, it might not matter how anyone feels about her.

***

As usual morning comes too soon, and Bo is roused at an inhuman hour by an unbearably perky stylist. Kenzi drags her out of bed, tosses a simple shift in her face, and guides her up to the roof before Bo’s eyes have even adjusted to being open—and all with an irritating level of enthusiasm that can only be the result of far too much caffeine. She’s lifted into a hovercraft, injected with a tracker, and then her and Kenzi are off to some unknown location where final preparations will take place.

Breakfast is served on the hovercraft. The knowledge that this could be her last meal hovers over everything like a thick fog, choking up her throat and making her food taste bland and unappealing, but she forces down as much of it as she can.

Before long they arrive at her Launch room, entering through underground tubes to prevent any early glimpses of the arena. Kenzi’s enthusiasm starts to crack around the edges, and by the time Bo is showered and dressed the cracks are starting to show.

“Here,” Kenzi says, her hands shaking as she thrusts something into Bo’s.

Opening her hands, Bo finds the pendant Trick gave her just days ago and gasps. “How did you get this?”

“I…might have lifted it from your room,” Kenzi admits, biting her lip and giving Bo her best innocent look.

Bo chuckles, slipping the leather cord around her neck. “Klepto.”

Kenzi slaps her hand to her chest in mock offense. “Hey, they never would have let you bring it in, okay? You should be thanking me.”

It’s a joke more than anything, but Bo offers a sincere smile nonetheless. “Thank you.” A lump presses at the back of her throat, and she swallows it back. “For-for everything. You’ve been…really great,” she manages before she has to stop to draw a shuddering breath.

“Don’t you dare cry,” Kenzi orders, wiping carefully at the edges of her own eyes. “Some of us have makeup on, and there is no such thing as mascara that doesn’t smudge.”

“Sorry,” Bo says with a watery laugh, then sniffles. “Maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t get to see Lauren or Dyson before I left. I’m lousy at goodbyes.”

“Hey.” Kenzi’s voice is stern now, her hands warm against Bo’s clammy cheeks. “This is not goodbye. You are going to march your fine succu-self into that Arena and show everyone in Panem that you are the last Fae they ever want to mess with. And when you come out of there alive, you and I are going on the biggest shopping spree the world has ever seen.”

Unlike Dyson, Kenzi seems like she might actually believe her own words—or at least, she’s too stubborn to consider the possibility of being wrong. Bo can’t help but smile, offering a mock salute. “Yes ma’am.”

An electronic voice chooses this moment to announce that it’s time to prepare for Launch. Any warmth Bo felt before vanishes as she steps onto the circular metal plate.

“You’re gonna be great, Bo-Bo.” Kenzi puts on a brave smile, rubs vigorously at Bo’s shoulders. “I just know it.”

Bo struggles to return the smile despite the fear hammering in her chest. “What, are you psychic?”

“My Aunt Ludmila is,” Kenzi replies with a shrug. “I figure it’s gotta run in the family, right?” Her hands slide down to tangle with Bo’s, and she sucks in a deep breath.

Before she can say anything more, a glass cylinder lowers around Bo and forces their hands apart. Bo presses her palm to the glass. “Kenz…”

Kenzi’s chin trembles as she smiles brightly, displaying two encouraging thumbs up. The words “you’ll be fine” form on Kenzi’s lips, but Bo can’t hear anything but her own shallow breathing.

After an all-too-quick trip up through complete darkness, Bo is thrust out into the daylight. Her eyes blink rapidly, stinging from the bright light. She can smell trees, and grass, and feel a strong wind against her face.

Vex’s now-familiar voice rings out over the loudspeaker, resonating all around her.

“Ladies and gentlemen, let the seventy-fourth Hunger Games begin!”


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning: this is where that Graphic Violence tag comes into play.
> 
> Also, I thought I'd link back to [this image](http://i59.tinypic.com/t87s5i.png) in case anyone needs faces to keep track of the initial bloodbath.

 

 

There’s no ticking, no indication of a countdown taking place, but Bo knows she’ll be blown to bits if she steps off of her metal circle a second before the gong sounds to officially start the games.

Instead, she takes the time to scan the area she’s found herself in. The clearing is huge, a bare expanse of hard packed dirt with a large metal structure in the very center. The Cornucopia is overflowing with supplies, from backpacks to weapons to first aid kits; the items spill out from the entrance of the structure, decreasing in value the farther away they get.

The tributes are all spaced evenly around the Cornucopia, in seemingly random order. On Bo’s left, a slight woman from Three is frantically scanning the area, taking stock of available items. To her right, the quiet older woman from Five is staring intently at the tribute on her other side. Vidar from Eleven squirms under her gaze, like he’s physically affected by it; a small, selfish part of Bo is glad she’s not the one being targeted.

She’s starting to regret not being more cooperative whenever Dyson tried to talk strategy. Should she make a break for the Cornucopia, grab what useful things she can find while somehow dodging the other tributes? What’s more important, food or weapons? She tries to remember what she learned in the training room—water is first priority, right? There’s a lake off to the right, but it’s an obvious choice; she won’t be able to hide there.

About twenty yards in front of Bo, there’s a sturdy water bottle. It might even be full. If she’s fast, she can dart in and grab it with a minimum of confrontation; but what if she’s not the only one with that thought? The thought of having to kill, even in self-defense, still twists uneasily in her gut.

There’s no more time to think about it. The gong sounds, and the ring of tributes springs into action. Curiously, the woman to Bo’s left immediately sprints for the tree line—without a glance back at the items she’d been so eagerly surveying. Beyond her, the men from Four and Ten are already locked in a fierce battle; Four snaps at Ten with several rows of vicious teeth, while Ten slashes into Four’s thick skin with razor sharp claws. Bo takes a reflexive step back; that’s one fight she definitely doesn’t want to get in the middle of.

Off to the other side, the woman from Five has Vidar cowering before her, strangely stiff despite the fear on his face. While they’re occupied, a shifty looking man from Nine lunges for an axe several yards away. Wapun from Seven reaches him first, and in mere moments his head and his body are being flung in opposite directions. Panic seizes Bo at the sight, and suddenly she can’t imagine doing anything but getting far, far away from here.

When she reaches the trees, Bo can’t resist ducking behind the trunk of one for a last glance at the battlefield. Wapun is slashing savagely with her axe at what appears to be a ball of lightning. The woman from Five abandons what now appears to be a stone statue of Vidar to join the fray, and is instantly caught in the chest by the electricity. Instead of shocking her, though, it bounces off harmlessly, falling to the ground in the form of the young man from Five.

Before he has a chance to get up, a spot of gray appears on his left shoulder. As it spreads, Bo realizes he’s turning to stone; this must be what she did to Vidar. The transformation stops abruptly when Wapun cleaves into the woman with her axe. The would-be victim writhes helplessly on the ground, clutching at his chest until Wapun silences him as well.

Down at the Cornucopia, Liam from One and Logan from Six have the girl from Eight trapped between them and the structure. Frost drips from her hands as she tries to hold them off, but she’s no match for them—especially when Liam suddenly blinks out of existence and reappears behind her in a flash of green flame. He draws a blade over her throat, then tosses her to the ground as she bleeds out. Beyond them, Nora from Four has Choga by the throat. No matter how he struggles, he can’t seem to get out of her grip. As Bo watches in horror, Nora slams him against the outer wall of the Cornucopia; his shattered body slides to the ground in a boneless heap.

She has to get out of here. Without another thought, Bo turns around and runs into the trees. 

 

***

 

Pain explodes in Bo’s knee, blurring her vision with tears. Her ankle throbs from twisting on the tree root that made her fall in the first place, and her face and hands are covered in scratches from all the foliage she’s had to push through or hide in when another tribute got too close. 

“Okay, I get it,” she sighs, slumping over to lean against the solid trunk of the offending tree. “You really don’t like me.”

She doesn’t know who she’s talking to—the tree, the Gamemakers, fate? Right now it doesn’t seem to matter. She should probably just be glad she’s alive. The carnage of the bloodbath is still fresh in her mind; it can’t be more than sheer dumb luck that she’s managed not to get killed already.

Somewhere behind Bo, there’s a sudden commotion. Her heart seizes in her chest, and for a long moment she doesn’t dare breathe. She hears people shouting, the sound of various objects hitting the trunks and branches of the trees. A familiar shriek sounds out across the area, and a streak of black flashes past Bo’s vision, disappearing above the canopy of trees.

A smile pulls at Bo’s lips, despite her heart pounding in her throat. Asanka is safe, at least for now. Leaves crunch under his hunters’ feet as they rush past Bo’s hiding place, then stop abruptly.

“Damn it!” Tamsin curses, kicking up a spray of leaves uncomfortably close to Bo’s hiding spot. “I  _ had _ the little shit!”

“Don’t worry about it,” Bruce offers in an attempt at reassurance. “You said yourself he won’t last the day. Someone else will get him.”

In the silence that follows, Bo has no way of knowing what’s happening—but the image of Tamsin standing there seething comes to mind all too easily.

“It was  _ my _ kill.”

Bruce sighs. “Come on,” he urges calmly. “We need to cover more distance before the other Careers realize we’re not coming back.”

“Not without my knives.”

_Maybe you shouldn’t have thrown them all at my friend_ , Bo thinks, but stays stock-still and as silent as possible as their footsteps start moving away.

When they’re far enough away, Bo labors her way to a standing position. Her knee is still throbbing, as is her ankle, but she  doesn’t have a choice right now: she  _ has  _ to cover more ground. The lake can’t be the only source of water in the arena; that would be too easy. There’s got to be something else, and looking at least gives her some sense of direction.

As she starts limping along again, the cannons start going off. The bloodbath must be over. Bo counts the shots as she trudges along, using trees to keep herself upright. Ten cannon shots. Ten dead tributes—ten dead Fae. That leaves thirteen other Fae, all with the same compelling reason to kill Bo: their own survival.

It’s only a matter of time before she can’t keep moving anymore. As it is, she finds herself frustratingly grateful for the feed Dyson provided last night; because of him she can probably go a day or two without any food or water at all, though it definitely won’t be fun. Her injuries won’t heal as quickly as she’d like, but she’s not exactly in a position to complain.

Eventually the sky begins to darken, and Bo starts looking for a safe place to hide for the night. Further exploration uncovers a suitable niche beneath an outcropping of rock; it offers three sides of protection, and if she’s lucky she’ll wake up before anyone can get close enough.

She sets to work doing what she can to further camouflage her hiding place, stopping only when the darkness makes it impossible to continue. Tucking herself into the niche, she looks up at the sky as Panem’s anthem plays over invisible speakers.

One after the other, pictures of the dead tributes flash across the night sky. The shark-man from Four apparently lost his fight with Ten, as his picture appears just after the man from Three. The women from Nine and Ten join the deaths Bo already knows about, and finally Vidar’s picture changes to the Capitol seal then fades to black.

As she settles back against the rock, it dawns on Bo that she’s alive. She survived the first day, which is almost more than she dared to hope for; maybe she can make it through this after all. She closes her hand around the pendant Trick gave her. A symbol of her true self, he said.

Hopefully if she makes it through this, she’ll still remember who that is.

 

***

Her eyes snap open with only seconds to dodge the axe coming at her face. Throwing her body forward, Bo manages to knock her assailant off balance. She scrambles to her feet, looking around her for anything she might be able to use as a weapon.

Wapun rises slowly and deliberately, eyes flashing as she holds up her axe for another blow. “You should not have trespassed.”

“Uh, sorry,” Bo replies sarcastically, dodging the next swing. “I didn’t see the sign. Do you really want to argue about property rights at a time like this?”

A snarl of rage is her only response, and Bo has to roll to the side to avoid being chopped in half. She reaches out and grabs a large rock, holding it up just in time to deflect another blow of Wapun’s axe. She tries to get to her feet again, but her heels slide on the loose dirt and dried leaves; Wapun stands over her and raises her weapon again, and Bo is sure she’s about to die.

Suddenly an arrow whizzes by Wapun’s head, embedding itself in a tree somewhere behind Bo. Wapun whirls around, bellowing with rage; several yards away, the short man from Eight holds a bow aloft with one gloved hand as the other reaches toward the quiver on his back.

Momentarily forgetting Bo, Wapun barrels toward the man with her axe at the ready. He nocks another arrow, letting it fly as deadly-looking quills pop out all along his back.

Bo takes advantage of the distraction to rise to her feet, limping away as quietly as possible. She nearly smacks into a tree, then realizes when she turns around that it’s the unlucky resting place of the arrow meant for Wapun. She yanks it out of the wood; it’s more of a weapon than she had before. Traces of a sticky fluid still cling to the arrowhead; poison, maybe?

She doesn’t waste much time wondering, or debating whether she’ll have the nerve to use it. Her muscles may be aching worse than they ever have, but the only way she’s going to stay alive is if she keeps moving.

For as long as she can. 

 


	15. Chapter 15

Bo doesn’t know how long she’s been running when the cannon goes off. Her heart stops in her throat, and stumbles to a halt as she tries desperately to remember—has she made it far enough away? Should she keep running, or start looking for a place to hide?

A second cannon shot joins the first, and the iron grip on Bo’s chest relaxes. It could be unrelated—there are enough other tributes still living—but it seems likely enough that the arrows were poisoned after all, and that neither combatant survived. She makes a mental note to be more careful with the arrow she currently has wrapped up in her jacket, holding it gingerly to her chest as she trudges on.

Her stomach starts to gnaw at itself after a while, but for the most part she ignores it in favor of trying to soothe her parched throat. Sweat clings to her skin, taunting her with its moisture; she thinks of that water bottle back at the Cornucopia, wonders if it ended up being full. She should have checked—everyone else was focused on each other, she could have made it.

Or she could be dead right now, she reminds herself; a statue, or in bloody shreds staining the dirt. There’s no point wondering about it now. Right now what’s important is finding an alternate source of water.

The sun is bright and hot overhead when she stumbles across it—a pond, partially obscured by a jut of rock. Sunlight glitters off of the water, while tiny fish dart beneath the surface. It seems almost too perfect, and Bo can’t help but wonder if it’s some sort of mirage. Then one of the bushes at the water’s edge seems to—no, it  _ definitely _ moves.

That answers that question: she’s going crazy, and  _ none _ of this is real.

Or at least that’s what she thinks, so she doesn’t immediately register the face looking out at her from what is not a bush after all, but a man. It takes her a moment to realize that it’s a tribute—the man from Seven. She stands stock-still, clutching her jacket to her chest.

He doesn’t look dangerous, though. If anything, his expression makes it clear that he’s terrified. Bo knows she shouldn’t just trust it, that it could just be a trick to make her drop her guard—but maybe it’s not. Taking a chance, she spreads her arms and gives him a small, encouraging smile. “I’m not looking for a  fight,” she says cautiously. “I was just hoping for some water.”

For an interminably long moment, he regards her with wide, unreadable eyes. “Help yourself,” he finally says. His eyes nervously track Bo as she comes to kneel at the opposite edge of the pond.

“ I’m Bo,” she offers, then dips her hands into the water. She takes a careful sip and barely suppresses a moan as the cool liquid slides down her throat.

“ Kazimir,” he replies with a hesitant smile. His voice is deep and warm, like sunlight on damp earth. “You can call me Kaz.”

“ Nice to meet you.” Bo cringes as soon as the words pass her lips. “Or I’m sure it would be, under better circumstances,” she corrects with a wry smile.

Kaz shrugs, returning the smile. “We’ve known each other for a good thirty seconds now and we haven’t tried to kill each other. That’s pretty nice.”

Bo chuckles, scooping up more water as Kaz returns to his previous activity. Belatedly, Bo notices blue fluid oozing out of a nasty gash in his forearm. He’s systematically cupping water in his hand, splashing it over the wound.

“ What happened?”

“ I had a run-in with Wapun last night.” He shudders and dabs at his wound with a damp leaf. “Never liked wendigos. Vicious, selfish creatures.”

“ Can’t really argue with that,” Bo mutters. The mere memory of the feral rage in Wapun’s eyes is enough to send chills down her spine. A sigh of relief stutters down her spine when she remembers there’s a good chance she’ll never have to see it again. “I don’t think she’s gonna be a problem anymore, though.”

“ Did you…kill her?” Kaz asks, eyes wide.

Bo shakes her head. “Actually, it was almost the other way around. I’d probably be dead if that little porcupine guy hadn’t come  along.” Scooping up a generous handful of water, she splashes it over her face and neck. It’s no rose-scented shower, but after all the running she’s been doing it feels incredible just to wipe the dirt and sweat from her skin. “They killed each other, I think. I didn’t exactly stick around to watch.”

Kaz reaches into the water, scraping a bit of algae from the rocks and applying it to the gash on his arm. Once that’s done he lays a large, wet leaf over it, like mother nature’s version of a band-aid. Then he sits back on the bank of the pond, sucking bits of algae from his fingertips. 

Though her nose wrinkles at the sight, it’s a stark reminder of how long it’s been since she’s eaten. She’s passed a couple of bushes growing some sort of berry, but she doesn’t remember enough from training to be sure they weren’t poisonous. Suddenly the tiny fish darting around in the pond are more than just a background observation; she’s not exactly an expert fisherman, but anything’s better than algae.

“ You’re the succubus,” Kaz says, while Bo is pondering how exactly to get the fish  _ out _ of the pond. “The one who volunteered.”

“ That’s me,” Bo sighs. Maybe if she’s quick enough, she can trap a fish or two between her hands. It wouldn’t be much, but if she kept at it she might get a manage a halfway decent meal. “But if you’re gonna start listing all the reasons I shouldn’t have, don’t bother. I’ve pretty much heard them all.”

Kaz just shakes his head. “No, I—I understand, actually—” he stops, frowning as Bo plunges her hands into the water. “What are you doing?”

“ Catching breakfast,” Bo grumbles. All she managed to get was a glancing brush of scales against her fingers. “Or trying to, at least.”

“ Let me.” Kaz drops his hand to the water’s edge, sinks his fingers into the thick mud. The plants growing along the bank start to twitch, then angle toward one another. In moments they’ve woven themselves together, and as Bo continues to watch, they sweep up through the water in a slow arc. The end result is a half dozen or so of the tiny fish, flopping helplessly in a makeshift net.

“ Wow.” At first all Bo can do is gape. She knows her own powers, of course—has learned how they affect other Fae, if nothing else—but  most Fae that have survived this long have learned not to make any sort of overt display of power; the Capitol would either exploit them as a resource, or neutralize them as a threat. In a lot of ways, Bo still reacts like a human would when she witnesses a new Fae power—with a rush of giddy excitement, a sense of wonder that such things are actually possible.

“ It seemed easier than your way,” Kaz offers with a smile.

Bo chuckles; she can’t really argue. “Thanks.” Looking back down at the fish, she realizes she has no idea what to do with them now. She should have grabbed  _ something _ at the Cornucopia, even if it was a stupid little pocketknife. Instead, she’s stuck digging around in the mud at the water’s edge until her fingers find one thin and sharp enough to serve her purpose. “So what did you mean?” 

Kaz frowns, confused. “I’m sorry?”

“ Before,” Bo clarifies, plucking a large wide leaf from the surface of the water. It’ll make as good a plate as she’s likely to get. “You said you understood why I volunteered.”

A nostalgic sort of sadness sparkles in Kaz’s eyes, and he rubs at his beard of grass. “I have a son,” he confesses. “Sasha. He came of age this year. I swore that if they called his name, I would go in his place.”

“ But they didn’t,” Bo says softly. Aside from the Careers, she’s the only volunteer this year.

“ Nope.” He manages a weak smile, his forehead creased tight. “I guess it was just meant to be me.”

“ You’re worried about him.”

Kaz looks down at his lap, at fingers twisted together like flesh-colored vines. “He’ll be all right,” he insists, almost to himself. “He’s grown now, and I know he can manage for himself. Still, I-I wish I didn’t have to leave him so soon.”

“ Hey, you never know,” Bo says optimistically, reaching for one of the slimy, wriggling fish and laying it on her leaf. She cringes as she presses down with the sharp rock, taking its head off and  putting a halt to the flopping. “You might surprise everyone and win this whole thing.”

He chuckles and meets her eyes, lifting an eyebrow. “I think we both know that’s not going to happen.”

Silence settles thick between them. There’s nothing she can say to encourage him that wouldn’t be a lie. “Well it’s clear how much you love him,” she finally offers. She thinks of her mother, so quick to disown her; of her father, who would rather die at the Peacekeepers’ hands than admit that his daughter was Fae. “A lot of parents wouldn’t be willing to make that kind of sacrifice. He’s lucky to have had you for as long as he did.”

“ Thank you,” Kaz says with a humble smile. “I only hope he agrees.”

Bo’s answering grin turns to a grimace as she looks back down at her partially butchered fish. She splits it open with the sharp rock, and manages to dig out a modest mouthful of white-ish flesh that she  thinks doesn’t have any bones in it. Her stomach lurches at the sight of it. “Ugh,” she groans. “Okay. I’ll just…close my eyes and pretend it’s sushi.”

***

“ So what’s your son like?” Bo asks, when she’s choked down all the fish she can manage. They’re on their feet again, surveying the area around the pond for good places to hide. With Kaz’s help, she might actually be able to survive—at least until the Gamemakers get bored of their “hide and wait” strategy and flush them out somehow.

Kaz thinks for a minute, a hint of a fond smile visible under the grass of his moustache. “Stubborn,” he replies. “He gets ideas in his head and there’s no talking him out of them, no matter how foolish or dangerous. He’s a thrill-seeker, Sasha is; always about the next moment. He’s…not big on the past, or tradition.”

“ Can’t really blame him,” Bo remarks. “Look at Panem’s biggest tradition—tossing a bunch of Fae in an arena to fight to the death.

He shakes his head. “Now you sound like Sasha,” he accuses good-naturedly, then sobers. “It’s true not all traditions are good  ones. But there are others that exist for good reason.”

“ Like what?” Bo presses, curious.

Pressing a palm to the trunk of a nearby tree, Kaz breathes in slow and deep. The gash on his forearm is now completely healed. “The source of power, of balance, of  _life_ — mine and my son’s—is tied to the earth. Trees, grass, flowers—our connection to them is essentially what makes us what we are.” He turns back to Bo, eyes wide and serious. “I’m afraid if he ignores that connection, or rejects it…”

“… then he’ll lose more than just a love of nature,” Bo finishes, understanding. It’s still so easy to look at things the way a human would; she forgets sometimes that the Fae have different rules, and that some of them simply can’t be broken.

“ Exactly. But he won’t let me explain that. Every time I try, he just shuts down and refuses to listen.”

Bo rests a hand on his shoulder. “Maybe he’s listening now. You never know.”

“ Maybe.” Kaz smiles half-heartedly. He’s about to say something else when a shrill cry pierces the air.

There’s just enough time for Bo to recognize the cry before it cuts off sharply. A cannon fires seconds later, and Bo feels it like a shot to her gut. Asanka did well to survive this long, but that doesn’t make it any easier to know that somewhere in this arena, his lifeless body is waiting to be picked up and disposed of. 

The unfairness of it, the pointlessness, churns angrily in her stomach. Her hands curl into fists at her sides, and she doesn’t quite realize she’s actively seething until Kaz’s fingers brush her forearm.

“ Are you all right?” he asks.

“ Yeah, I just…I knew him,” Bo explains.

“ I’m sorry,” Kaz says, grimacing sympathetically. “But that was  closer than I’d like, and there’s one less target out there now. Someone will be coming for us soon; it’d be smart to be hidden before they get here.”

Bo offers him a weak smile and gestures ahead. “Lead on.” 


	16. Chapter 16

“ Wow. When you said you could build us shelter, I didn’t exactly picture  _ this _ .”

Kaz has been working since before the sun started to set, his fingers buried deep in the earth. Now the surreal darkness of twilight is settling over them, and what was previously a rather barren stand of trees is now overgrown with bushes and vines. Beneath Kaz, a blanket of lush grass sprouts to cover the ground.

“ It’s been a while since I’ve done it,” Kaz admits, pulling his fingers from the dirt. He stands and steps out of the shelter, brow furrowing as he examines his work. “Not since the Dark Days.”

The Dark Days. Bo always feels impossibly young when they come up. All of the Fae she knows remembers them, lived them; for her, they happened generations ago. “Did you hide people like this?”

A bittersweet smile pulls at Kaz’s mouth. “It was all I could do. I hid refugees, mostly; people trying to escape the violence.” He sighs, and the smile fades. “It didn’t matter much in the end.”

“ I’m sure it mattered to them,” Bo argues.

“ You’re very kind.” A hint of his previous smile reappears before he turns his focus back to the shelter. “Not my best work, but it should fool anyone passing by.”

Bo kneels and crawls into the space, moaning at the feel of the soft grass beneath her. It’s a far cry from huddling upright on the hard ground all night. “After last night, this might as well be the Capitol’s finest hotel room. I might actually get some decent sleep tonight.”

“ I hope you do,” Kaz says, settling cross-legged in the opening of the shelter. Slowly, his body starts to shift—skin hardening into bark, branches sprouting from his arms and legs and back. A grim look remains on his face. “We managed make it through today, but I don’t think tomorrow is going to be so quiet.”

As if on cue, Panem’s anthem starts to play. Kaz gives Bo one last smile before his face disappears, turning outward to watch the dead tributes scroll across the sky. Through the branches, Bo can just make out their faces. Asanka is last, his gentle eyes  sparkling like they never will again, and her gut wrenches.

Whose face will be up there tomorrow night? Kaz’s? Bruce’s? Her own? How long can any decent person last in a game where you either play along or die?

Curling onto her side, Bo clutches the pendant Trick gave her and wills herself to fall asleep. If Kaz is right, she’s going to need all the strength she can get. 

 

***

Bo wakes to the sound of crunching leaves, frighteningly close to her little alcove. Her heart leaps into her throat, and suddenly her breath seems unbearably loud. She covers her mouth with a shaking hand, peering out between branches and vines.

“— really think we’d just let you go?”

It’s Kasey, the woman from One; she’s flanked by Logan and Gid, from Six and Ten respectively. The three of them have their arms crossed in a transparent attempt at intimidation that seems less than effective.

“ To be honest Kasey—” Tamsin leans forward, a sickly sweet smile in her voice, “—I don’t really give a shit  _ what _ you do.” Behind her, Bruce stands solid with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face.

“ You’re gonna regret this , ”  Kasey spits. Sharp teeth glint in the indirect sunlight. “No one betrays me,  _ TamTam _ . Not even you.”

Tamsin rolls her eyes, fakes a yawn. “If we’re gonna fight, let’s just do it already. Bruce and I have places to be. People to kill.” Her eyes rake critically over Kasey. “People a lot scarier than you.”

Kasey snarls and launches herself at Tamsin, fingers extended like claws. Tamsin slams a forearm into Kasey’s chest, keeping her at arms’ length.

“ Shit, watch the teeth!” Tamsin curses, groping at her waist with her free hand. Her hand curls around the handle of a knife, and she shoves Kasey away, hard. A low growl sounds in Kasey’s throat  as the two begin to circle each other.

Meanwhile, Bruce has his hands full holding off the other two. Despite all her muscle, Logan is still probably only half his size—but she’s relentless enough to make up for it, and the brutal slashing of Gid’s claws is enough of a distraction for her to get in some really good hits. His chances don’t look good.

Guilt stabs at Bo’s chest. Bruce has been nothing but nice to her; she should help him—she  _ wants _ to help him, but she’s afraid. While she wrestles with her fear, she unwraps the arrow still bundled in her jacket. It’s the only weapon she’s got; she might as well have it ready, even if she still doesn't know if she'll use it.

A loud crash steals Bo’s breath as Gid is thrown to the ground just feet away from Bo. He snarls, moves to get up, then stops mid-motion and sniffs the air. Pulse pounding in her throat, Bo holds the shaft of the arrow in a white-knuckled grip and hopes he won’t find her.

“ Someone stinks of wolf,” Gid spits, prowling on his hands and knees toward Bo’s hiding place.

Despite the life-or-death situation, Bo can’t help the flash of disgust that briefly wrinkles her nose. He can  _ smell _ that? After two days? Fae senses are  _ so _ creepy.

Then he’s tearing at the foliage growing between the trees, and Bo can’t think of anything except her imminent death—until she notices some of the plants trying to subtly grow back. Kaz is trying to protect her, to help her, but it’s only going to get them  _ both _ killed.

Outside, a deafening thud is followed by footsteps, and then Logan is there too, yanking at the one bush that Bo knows is not a bush. Branches snap under her crushing grip, and tears sting at Bo’s eyes as she notices little trickles of blue sap leaking from several splits in the wood. Logan yanks Kaz out by his roots, tosses him forcefully at Bruce to delay him; she doesn’t seem to realize it’s anything more than a plant.

Then they’re both dragging Bo out of her hole. Bo tries to stab at them with her arrow, but Logan grabs her wrist, her grip painfully tight as she forces Bo’s hand to the ground. As much as Bo struggles, she can’t pull free; her eyes widen in horror as she  watches Gid raise his foot, then blinding pain shoots through her body as he brings it down to snap both arrow and hand.

Logan is yanked back forcefully by her hair, and Bo looks up to see Bruce up and fighting once more. As the two trade blows, Gid turns his attention to Bo. She tries to curl into a more defensible position, but he’s too fast; he jerks her to her feet by her arm, shoves her roughly against one of the trees.

“ Wolf lover,” he snarls, baring sharp teeth. “I’m going to enjoy killing you.”

Desperately trying not to panic, Bo reaches up with her good hand, curls it around his wrist. Just a little skin is all she needs. “Really?” she murmurs in her sultriest tone, pulsing as much charm into him as she can as her breath whispers against his lips. “Wouldn’t you rather claim me for your own? Show that nasty wolf who’s in charge?”

It’s all it takes for him to break; his hands slide from her shoulders up to tangle in her hair, his mouth slanting over hers possessively. She curls the fingers of her good hand in his jacket, holds him in place as she starts to feed. Chi flows into her, soothing sore muscles and knitting together the broken bones of her hand.

Bo follows him to the ground when his knees give out, high on the chi still streaming into her. She’s healed now, but he still has more to give and she doesn’t know when she’ll have a chance to feed again; the monster inside her is demanding more.

His body slumps in her arms, a euphoric smile frozen on his lips. Bo drops him to the ground, the flow of chi cutting off abruptly as horror chokes up her throat. Heart thudding in her chest, she presses two fingers to his throat; it’s faint, almost impossible to detect, but there’s the slightest hint of a pulse.

Her relief is short-lived, beaten back by the sounds of battle still raging around her. She looks up in time to see Bruce twisting Logan’s neck savagely to the side; the body slumps to the ground at his feet as he catches Bo’s gaze.

For one terrifying second, Bo is sure that she’s next. She may have helped fight off their attackers, but she’s still their enemy. Bruce just smiles, though, brief and full of warmth, before turning his focus—and most intimidating game face—to the last foe standing.

“ It’s over Kasey,” Tamsin sneers. “Do you really think you can beat these odds?”

Kasey’s eyes dart from Tamsin to Bruce, to Bo and then back again. She’s outmatched, but you wouldn’t know it by the smirk on her face. “It’s not over yet, TamTam.”

Tamsin lunges for Kasey, but the other woman is quick enough to evade it. The half-second it takes for Tamsin to regain her equilibrium is enough time for Kasey to pull something from a pouch at her hip and hurl it at Tamsin’s feet. A thick stream of smoke immediately billows out from it; Tamsin stumbles backward and coughs as it envelops her and fills the surrounding area.

It clears quickly—the Capitol still wants good footage, after all—but Kasey is already gone, echoes of footfalls growing more and more distant.

“ A smoke bomb?” Tamsin grumbles, kicking the now-inert canister. “Really, Kasey?”

Meanwhile Bo’s attention is focused elsewhere, on a heap of foliage in the shape of a man. She rushes to Kaz’s side, but the way his body is twisted sends any hope she has plummeting into her stomach.

“ Kaz…” Bo murmurs, her voice cracking.

His eyes flutter open halfway. “You made it,” he says with the faintest hint of a smile.

“ Just hold on.” Bo sniffles, cupping his bearded cheek in her hand. The grass tickles at her palm as she pulses a small amount of charm into him—just enough to ease the pain. “You’re gonna be fine.”

Kaz tries to shake his head, but only manages a labored twitch. “If-if you see my son, tell hi-him—”

She’ll never know what it is Kaz wanted her to say; his head lolls back against the ground, eyes going dull and glassy, and soon Bo can’t feel his chest rise and fall anymore. A cannon shot rings  out overhead.

“ Another one bites the dust,” Tamsin says flippantly, wiping a blade on her jacket before tucking it back into the harness on her chest.

“ He was my _friend_ ,” Bo chokes out, rising angrily to her feet.

Tamsin raises an eyebrow at Bo, smirk firmly in place. “Sweetheart, there’s no such thing as a friend in here.”

“ Maybe there could be, if people like you would stop playing the Capitol’s game,” Bo snaps back.

Before Bo can fully process it, she’s pinned against the trunk of a tree—again. “You don’t know anything about me,” Tamsin snarls, then laughs. “And if you actually think a baby Fae like you can make the slightest bit of difference, then you don’t know anything about Panem either.”

Bo juts her chin out, sets her shoulders as best she can under Tamsin’s forearm. “It’s better than turning into some kind of monster for nothing more than their entertainment. But maybe you’d rather be a  _ slave _ .”

Something flashes in Tamsin’s eyes, something sharp and hot and volatile, but before she can say anything she’s interrupted by the hum of engines, swiftly getting closer.

“ They’re coming for the bodies,” Bruce says, looking warily up at the sky.

“ Shit,” Tamsin curses. She pushes away from Bo and drops to the ground beside Logan’s body, quickly and methodically searching for anything useful. “Bruce, check goat-boy over there. We need to be gone before that hovercraft gets here.”

“ Don’t they only take dead bodies?” Bo asks, her eyes stuck on Bruce. He’s picking over Gid’s form, adding to a growing pile of supplies on the ground. Bo’s heart pounds in her chest; if they find out she didn’t kill him…

“ _ Damn _ you’re naive.” Tamsin pulls the belt from Logan’s pants and  starts stringing pouches and weapon sheaths onto it. “You think they’ve never ‘accidentally’ taken a live tribute instead?”

Bo frowns, confusion masking the relief that rushes over her when Bruce abandons Gid and starts sorting through the spoils. “Why would they do that?”

Tamsin shrugs. “I don’t know, ‘cause they can? Usually it’s a rare Fae, one with powers they want to study more closely.” She fastens the belt into a loop and slings it over her shoulder, raking her eyes over Bo as she stands. “I’d say you fit the bill, Hotpants.”

A chill claws its way up Bo’s spine. She remembers the conversation she overheard, Dyson accusing Lauren of wanting to experiment on Bo; the way Lauren admitted she wanted to study her. Bo went into this thinking death was the worst-case scenario; now she’s not so sure.

The hovercraft gets louder, closer. Bo stands in place, frozen with indecision; she needs to get away from here, yes, but where should she go? Her only ally is lost; her only choices at this point are to take her chances on her own again, or to join Bruce and Tamsin for as long as they’ll have her— if they’ll have her.

In the end it’s Bruce who makes up her mind. Tamsin is already rushing away, but Bruce stops long enough to offer Bo his hand. “Come on, Bo!”

She doesn’t waste a second in grabbing it, following after him as fast as she can. As they travel, Bo’s thoughts keep drifting back to Gid; did the Capitol take him? By sparing his life, has Bo condemned him to a fate worse than death?

Her fingers toy with the pendant around her neck, wondering how she’s supposed to remember who she is in the midst of this nightmare. All this time, she’s been determined not to become a monster—it turns out maybe she doesn’t have a choice. 

 

***

 

“ What the hell’d you bring her for?” Tamsin pants, when they’ve gone far enough to slow down and rest. She’s not even looking at Bo—her eyes are fixed accusingly on Bruce, like he’s made some kind of mess and she wants him to clean it up. 

“ She saved my life,” Bruce says, quiet and sincere. “I never could have taken those two if she hadn’t been there.”

A smile spreads on Bo’s lips. “Well, you saved mine too, so I guess we’re even.”

“ Ugh.” Tamsin wrinkles her nose in disgust. “You two _do_ know we’re all supposed to be killing each other, right?”

Bo rolls her eyes, crossing her arms as she turns to Tamsin. “Do you always do what you’re supposed to?”

There’s a feral edge to Tamsin’s too-sweet smile. “Only when it involves violence.”

“ Look, Tamsin,” Bruce cuts in. “You and I agreed that we’d have a better chance if we worked together. Having Bo on our side can only make us stronger.”

Tamsin has what looks like a million arguments on the tip of her tongue, but after a moment she gives up and sighs. “Whatever. She’s your responsibility,” she warns Bruce. “And she’s not getting any of my food.”


	17. Chapter 17

“ It’s beautiful,” Bruce remarks, looking up from the edible plants he’s sorting to admire the pendant Bo is worrying between her thumb and fingers. “I haven’t seen that symbol in decades.” He pauses, considers. “Maybe centuries.”

“ My grandfather gave it to me.” Bo smiles, tries to shake off the anxious melancholy closing in around her. “He said it was a symbol of my true self.” 

Tamsin scoffs and rolls her eyes, not looking up from the blade she’s polishing. Bo grits her teeth and ignores her, a feat made easier by the sudden chill in her veins as the anthem begins to play.

She didn’t think about it until just now—the dead tributes are about to start flashing across the sky, and there’s one face that they won’t see. If Bruce and Tamsin find out that she didn’t kill Gid…well, she doesn’t think Tamsin needs much of a reason to get rid of her.

“ He said it was usually used at something called a Dawning.” Maybe if she can keep them distracted, they won’t look up. “Some kind of rite of passage?”

Bruce nods. “It hasn’t been done since the humans took over. They wouldn’t let us. Unfortunately, that means more and more Fae don’t make it. The Dawning wasn’t just a tradition—it taught us to control our powers. Fae who didn’t undertake the Dawning, or who failed it…they devolved. Turned into little more than monsters.”

Bo swallows, her throat suddenly dry. “And now that it’s not an option?”

“ There are a lot more monsters running around,” Bruce says, grim. “Some Fae are able to resist, or camouflage themselves to avoid getting caught, but most end up being sent to the Capitol.”

“ What happens to them there?” Bo asks, though she’s not sure she wants to know. “Execution?”

Tamsin snorts. “They probably wish.”

When she glances Tamsin’s way, Bo catches a brief glimpse of Kaz’s gentle face projected onto the night sky. Whatever question she  was about to ask is lost in the painful clench of her throat.

“ Oh yeah,” Tamsin snarks, because of course she would notice Bo falter. “She’s a real asset to the team.”

“ Sorry if I actually have feelings,” Bo snaps, hiding how grateful she is for the distraction. There weren’t very many cannon shots today; just a little longer and she’ll be in the clear. “I don’t know what your problem is—”

“ My  _ problem _ ?” Tamsin cuts her off, setting aside her blades to turn toward Bo. “You want to know what my problem is, Princess? You’re dead weight. If Bruce hadn’t practically forced that little knife on you, you’d have no weapon at all. How your face hasn’t already been plastered across that screen is nothing short of a fucking miracle.”

While Bo glances anxiously up at the screen—the Capitol seal is flashing again, she’s safe—Bruce sighs. “Tamsin—”

“ No, it’s okay, Bruce.” Bo glares at Tamsin, prickling with irritation at the blonde’s arrogance. “I managed to get by long enough without your help.”

Tamsin snorts. “And what exactly was your strategy? Smile real pretty, and hope it convinces everyone not to kill you?”

Bo’s temper runs out, and she reaches over to press her palm against Tamsin’s cheek. “I have ways of getting what I need,” she murmurs, tilting Tamsin’s face toward her own. Her charm pulses hot between them, flowing freely into Tamsin’s skin. Tamsin leans closer, her breath warm on Bo’s lips—

“ Cute trick,” Tamsin says with a smirk. Her voice is thick with arousal that can’t possibly be faked, but she pulls away as easily as if Bo were human. “But don’t waste your energy. You’re gonna need it if you plan on  _ seducing _ all your enemies.” 

“ She’s right, Bo,” Bruce interjects, before Bo can come up with another retort. “About one thing, at least. We should get some sleep while we can. There’s no telling what tomorrow will bring.” 

“ Fine,” Bo sighs. She tucks herself into the same niche she slept in the first night, settles into a somewhat comfortable position. Bruce slumps against the the rock wall a few feet away, but Tamsin

just turns back to her blades. “Aren’t you gonna sleep?” she asks, more as a final shot than a show of any kind of concern. 

Tamsin chuckles, dry and absent of mirth. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

There’s something unsettling in her voice, like she doesn’t think it’ll be very long at all.

 

***

“ So what’s Kasey’s deal, anyway?” Bo asks the next morning, as they’re breaking camp.

“ Aside from being a vapid drama queen with an overinflated sense of self-worth?” Tamsin replies, eerily chipper.

“ Uh, yeah, besides that.” Bo rolls her eyes and turns to Bruce, hoping for a more informative answer.

“ It’s pretty much like Tamsin said.” Bruce shrugs. “Only she left out the part where Kasey’s pissed at the Capitol because her sisters died in the games.”

“ Sisters?”

“ Not real sisters,” Tamsin interjects, rolling her eyes. “She’s a kitsune. They’re pack Fae, big on social ties. She took it real personal when her two besties were Reaped one right after the other.”

“ Neither made it,” Bruce offers grimly. “It pretty much killed her business. They ran some body mod salon back in One.”

“ Oh,” Bo replies. “That sounds like a pretty good reason for a grudge.”

“ It’s not a grudge,” Tamsin groans, slinging her pack over her shoulders. “The bitch is out of her mind with rage. Which means your little party tricks probably won’t work on her.”

“ Whatever.” Bo rolls her eyes and follows Bruce as he takes the lead, picking at the ground ahead with a long, sturdy stick. She peers over his shoulder. “Looking for bread crumbs?”

“ No,” Bruce replies simply, casting a friendly smile back at her.

“ Traps, genius,” Tamsin snaps in the most condescending tone possible. “The closer we get to the Cornucopia, the closer we get to Kasey and her cronies—what’s left of them at least. They’re not gonna welcome us with open arms.” She gives Bo’s cleavage a sidelong glance. “Open pants, maybe.”

Bo responds with a withering glare. “You know, for someone who claims to want nothing to do with me, you sure are chatty.” Mischief touches her lips as she lowers her voice to a sultry drawl. “I might start to think you like me after all.”

“ Ugh.” Tamsin shudders and pretends to retch. “I’d rather keep my breakfast, if you don’t mind.”

It’s exactly the kind of reaction Bo was going for; she doesn’t bother to hide her victorious smirk. Tamsin rolls her eyes and steps up her pace, and Bo calls after her, “If it’s so dangerous, why are we going this way?”

Tamsin stops and turns, staring at Bo in critical disbelief. “Have you ever watched the Games, like, even once?”

She hasn’t. Even when she was a little girl, dazzled by the glitz and glamour of the preceding events, Bo could never bring herself to watch any of the actual fighting. In District Twelve, when everyone crammed into the square every year to watch on large viewscreens, Bo used to sneak off to distract herself and some willing Fae; she was always louder during those times, like she could drown the screams out with her moans.

Taking Bo’s preoccupied silence as an answer in itself, Tamsin smirks. “Too scary for you, Succulette?” There’s that look on her face again, like she’s wondering for the millionth time how Bo is still alive. 

“Screw you,” Bo retorts, before Tamsin can voice the question—also for the millionth time. Not her best comeback, but extenuating circumstances have to count for something.

Tamsin doesn’t seem to think so. She doesn’t even bother with a verbal response—just snorts derisively, shakes her head as she turns her focus back to the path ahead.

“ Okay but really,” Bo murmurs to Bruce after a moment or two. “Shouldn’t we be getting farther  _ away _ from the Cornucopia? It doesn’t exactly sound like somewhere we want to be.”

“ You aren't wrong about that,” Bruce concedes, poking carefully at the ground on the other side of a fallen log. “Unfortunately, the games are a show above all else. No one wants to watch us run and hide for days on end.” He steps over the log, then turns back to offer Bo a hand as well. “If we don’t fight willingly, they’ll find some way to force us to do it.”

Bo scoffs. “We still have free will. They can put a weapon in my hand, but they can’t make me use it.”

“ This coming from the woman whose whole body is a weapon,” Tamsin snarks, ignoring Bruce’s offered hand and stepping over on her own. Her lips curl into an unfriendly smirk. “You can’t tell me some part of you doesn’t get off on it. Fighting’s a lot like sex, really—lots of sweating and grabbing and trying to stick things in each other.”

“ You’re such a romantic,” Bo deadpans. “And a good fuck is better than a good fight any day.”

Tamsin smirks. “You haven’t been fighting the right people.”

Before Bo can begin to process that comment, she’s tackled by a snarling blur of color. Her back hits the ground hard, and she has a split-second to recognize her attacker before Gid’s fist slams into her side even harder. A scream tears from her throat, somewhere between agony and rage; what the hell is his hand  made of? And is this the thanks she gets for not killing him yesterday?

Then Gid is pulled off of her, and Bo curls in on herself as Bruce and Tamsin divide his attention between them. Her vision is spotted with red, even with her eyes closed, but she’s pretty sure the pain will fade soon enough. She just…needs to lay here for a little while longer.

Somewhere beneath the noise of battle, a faint click sounds—quickly followed by a pained grunt. Bo’s eyes fly open, registering surprise in Bruce’s blurry outline. He yanks something out of his neck and tosses it aside, hardly missing a beat in the fight. Whatever it is, it lands a few feet out of Bo’s reach; she considers making a lunge for it, but the mere thought makes her abdomen twist with pain.

Finally Bruce gets a hold of Gid’s head, twisting it savagely at the same moment Tamsin thrusts a knife up behind his ribs. His broken body crumples to the ground between them, and Bruce slumps down to rest against a tree soon after.

Tamsin doesn’t notice Bruce’s trouble at first; her eyes are fixed on Gid’s face. Recognition gives way to rage as she glares murderously at Bo.

“ Bruce…” Bo croaks, forcing herself to her hands and knees despite the tight, searing pain it causes.

He doesn’t look good. His face is pale and slick with sweat, screwed up in what looks like excruciating pain, and angry purple lines radiate from the wound on his neck. His eyes are glassy under half-closed lids, mouth hanging open as he draws shallow, labored breaths.

It’s probably the severity of his condition that keeps Tamsin from killing Bo right then and there; she’s more focused on getting to him to help. Her foot comes down hard on Bo’s shoulder, knocking her to the ground. “Stay the hell away from him,” she spits over her shoulder, already halfway to kneeling at Bruce’s side.

The pain in Bo’s stomach seems to fade into the background as adrenaline floods her system. If Bruce dies, she won’t be far behind unless she can somehow defend herself. She props herself up against a tree trunk, scanning the ground nearby for some kind of weapon as she slowly pushes herself to her feet. A flash of metal catches her eye; whatever Bruce got hit with, it’s coated with a powerful poison if his reaction is any indication. Maybe there’s enough still on it to neutralize Tamsin if she attacks. 

Before she can make a grab for it, a flash of movement draws her attention like a shot. Bruce’s features are slack now, as blood streams from a wide gash in his neck; Bo barely has time to fully register the horror of it before Tamsin has her pinned back  against the tree.

“ You killed him!” Bo gasps. Bruce’s blood is still wet and sticky on the blade now pressed to her throat. “Tamsin, what—”

“ You’re good,” Tamsin sneers, fingers flexing around the handle of the knife. Her other arm is locked across Bo’s chest, pressing hard on her sternum. “For a while there you had me convinced you were  actually as stupid as you looked.”

What exactly is she supposed to say to that? “Gee, thanks but—”

“ Shut up,” Tamsin hisses, pressing the blade in just a little bit more. “You may be able to manipulate men with a snap of your fingers, but honey, I am not a man. I’m older than you, I’m smarter, and I’m a  _ hell _ of a lot hotter, so if you think you’re gonna keep me from killing you by turning me into some kind of mindless sex slave—”

Bo can’t help it; she bursts out laughing, wincing when the knife bites into her skin.

“ Hey!” Tamsin growls, tilting the knife. “One wrong move, and you bleed out before you can blink.”

“ Oh, please,” Bo groans, still chuckling. She rolls her eyes, and irritation flashes in Tamsin’s. “I’m sorry, it’s just—even if I did want to make someone my sex slave, I’m sure I could find an easier target than  you .”

Tamsin’s forehead creases tightly together as confusion starts to leak into her icy expression. “Cut the bullshit,” she says, stubbornly clinging to her hostility. “If you’re not running some kind of con, then why didn’t you kill that asshole when you had the chance?”

Any hint of mirth dies. This is it: if she lies and confesses to a con that doesn’t exist, Tamsin will kill her; if she tells the truth, Tamsin will know just how weak she is—and kill her. Bo closes her eyes, swallowing carefully around the blade at her throat. “Because I couldn’t,” she admits. Iron seeps in to fortify her tone as she continues. “I wouldn’t. The Capitol can do whatever they want to me, but they can’t make me a killer.”

For an agonizingly long moment, Tamsin stares at Bo like she doesn’t think she’s real. Then she chuckles, shaking her head as she drops the knife and backs away. “Oh, honey, are you ever in the wrong place.”

“ Thanks, I figured that out on my own,” Bo grumbles, rubbing at her neck. Her body feels like a giant bruise, but at least the pain is dulling to a quiet, throbbing background noise. “So what now?”

The question seems to throw Tamsin; she tenses, looks away for a moment, then shrugs. “Now we grab their shit and keep moving,” she says in a neutral tone, kneeling back down to rummage through Bruce’s clothes. “Our odds haven’t exactly improved, and we’re easy pickings just sitting out here in the open.”

Bo drops down next to Gid’s body, guilt creeping in now that the adrenaline is fading. He’s dead now anyway; if she’d just killed him yesterday—

No . Bo shakes her head, forcing the thoughts from her head as she reaches into his pockets. She can’t think like that—not if she wants to survive.


	18. Chapter 18

“ You know, you don’t strike me as the type to give up.”

The sun is high overhead, and they’ve taken shelter in a cave-like structure overlooking a small stream. Tamsin grudgingly shared a small amount of her rations, once she realized it was the only way to get Bo to shut up about it, and they’ve been eating in tense silence ever since.

Tamsin jerks her head toward Bo, eyes blazing. “What the hell is  _ that _ supposed to mean?”

“ Nothing,” Bo replies innocently, holding up her hands in defense. “Just…you refused to play whatever Kasey’s game was. You  _ barely _ listened to Bruce when he insisted on not killing me. Yet here you are, and it’s not even random chance—you volunteered to play their game.”

Shifting uncomfortably, Tamsin finally shoots back, “So did you.”

Bo rolls her eyes. “And everyone knows why I did it,” she points out, hiding her victorious smirk. It’s embarrassing enough how easy it is to throw Tamsin off balance; she doesn’t need to rub salt in the proverbial wound. “What’s in it for you? You don’t seem like much of a glory hound.”

Tamsin snorts. “Well we’ve already established that you don’t know shit.”

“ Am I wrong?” Bo challenges. “Is that really all it takes to get you to do their bidding? The chance of a nice house and some extra rations?” She shakes her head. “I don’t buy it.”

There’s a small crunch as the cracker in Tamsin’s hand snaps in her grip. “Good thing it’s none of your damn business then.”

“ Touchy.” Bo smirks and raises a piece of dried fruit to her mouth. “Did I hit a nerve?”

“ Like you could,” Tamsin scoffs, wiping crumbs off of her pants. “And you need to stop talking about this shit.”

“ Why, too scary for you?” Bo taunts. She flinches when Tamsin smacks her in the back of the head.

“ No, idiot. Were you even listening to Bruce earlier?” There’s nothing smug or playful in Tamsin’s expression now, no sign that she is anything but deadly serious. “The Capitol wants a good show, and they’re not going to air you badmouthing them for all of Panem to see. Which means right now, you’re worth more to them dead or dying than alive. How long do you think you’ve got before they find some way to make that happen?”

The words sink like lead to the pit of Bo’s stomach. “I-I thought the whole point of the Games was to watch us kill  _ each other _ .” 

Tamsin shrugs. “Like you said, you won’t play their game. They’ll have to find some other way to get what they want.”

She can’t run. She can’t fight, apparently even with her words. She  _ won’t _ give in. “So what do I do?” Bo asks, frustrated and desperate enough to consider advice from Tamsin, of all people.

“ Beats me, Hotpants.” Tamsin sits back against a large rock, shaking her head pitifully. “I still can’t figure out why I haven’t killed you yet.”

“ Thanks,” Bo says, putting a hard twist on the word and rolling her eyes. “Your concern is touching.”

“ You’re still breathing.” Tamsin lifts an eyebrow. “That’s about the limit of my concern.”

“ Aww, and here I was hoping we could braid each other’s hair and talk about boys.”

“ Don’t push me, Succubus,” Tamsin warns with a smirk. “Although speaking of boys, what was with the whole ‘wolf-lover’ thing? You got some puppy kenneled back home?”

Bo looks down at her hands, like they’ll provide some kind of easy answer. “It’s…complicated,” is what she finally settles on. 

Tamsin snorts. “Then you must be doing it wrong.”

“ I haven’t had any complaints,” Bo shoots back, a smile fighting its way onto her lips.

It’s kind of sudden, how it dawns on Bo: she’s having  _ fun _ . Despite the morbid subject matter, and the life-or-death circumstances she’s in, there’s a strange sort of comfort in the back-and-forth banter that seems to come so easily with Tamsin.

She doesn’t get long to contemplate it. The sound of trumpets blares into the cave, lingering for a few seconds before being replaced by Vex’s smug voice.

“ Greetings to all of you lovely tributes—well, the ones still alive, anyway,” he adds with a self-indulgent chuckle. “I have an announcement that I think you’ll  _ all _ be interested in.”

Tossing a wary glance Tamsin’s way, Bo crawls up to the wide opening of the cave. The Capitol seal is emblazoned across the sky, a placeholder for whatever Vex is about to announce.

“ It’s going on three days now, and there aren’t very many of you left. I imagine some of you are getting a bit peckish—and I don’t mean for roots and berries.” The seal vanishes from the sky, replaced by a far-away shot of the Cornucopia. “Pickings are getting a bit thin, with only seven of you left—but you’re in luck.”

“ Shit,” Tamsin curses under her breath. Whatever is happening, it’s not new to her.

“ What?” Bo asks, shooting Tamsin a questioning look. Tamsin doesn’t offer a response, and Bo’s attention is quickly redirected when the image on the screen starts to slowly zoom in.

“ That’s right! In their infinite wisdom and generosity, the lovely folks in charge of the games have declared it time for a feast!”

The camera rushes closer, but it isn’t the speed of the zoom that turns Bo’s stomach; lining the entrance to the Cornucopia is a line of humans. They’re spaced a couple of feet apart, each chained to the dirt beneath their knees. There are seven of them—one for each remaining tribute, not that the Gamemakers will stop anyone from taking more than their share.

And the other tributes will be eager; the Vaccine has made sure that no Fae has tasted human chi--at least outside of the Games--in seventy-four years. Unfortunately for these prisoners, the Vaccine needs to be readministered every year—and criminals aren’t granted the privilege.

“ Now, in case any of our viewers at home are worried, let me assure you that each of the despicable human beings you see here has been convicted of a heinous crime, for which they have been sentenced to death,” Vex goes on dramatically, while the humans scowl blankly at the ground. “As we all know, if you break the rules you have to be punished. So think of that the next time you start getting naughty ideas, eh?” There’s a pause, like he’s waiting for laughter or applause or something. “This is a limited time offer, so get your inferior arses to the Cornucopia before everything—or every _one_ — is gone!”

Bo is climbing out of the cave before she can even think about it, and Tamsin is close behind. She grabs Bo by the arm and tugs her back around. “Whoa, wait—what the hell are you doing?”

“ Isn’t it obvious?” Bo jerks her arm back and steps away, looking around to get her bearings. The Cornucopia is  _ that _ way—

“ Are you insane or do you  _ actually _ have a death wish?”

Turning back to face Tamsin, Bo sighs. “I can’t just stand by and let people be slaughtered.”

Tamsin doesn’t even try to restrain the critical look on her face. “Did you miss the part where they’re criminals?”

Bo snorts and rolls her eyes as she turns away. “Yeah, ‘cause I have  _ so _ much faith in Panem’s legal system,” she deadpans, setting out for the Cornucopia.

“ You’re playing right into their hands,” Tamsin calls after her.

“ What other choice do I have?” Bo demands, whirling around to pin Tamsin with her gaze. “Just let them die?”

“ Uh, yeah,” Tamsin says, like it’s the obvious choice. “It’s gonna happen either way. Do you really think the Capitol is just going to let them go free?”

She has a point, but Bo can’t base this decision on what the Capitol  might do. “I’ll burn that bridge when I get to it,” Bo sighs, before she turns away for the last time.

“ Fine,” Tamsin huffs, standing stubbornly in place with her arms crossed. “But you’re not dragging me along on your suicide mission.”

“ I’m sure I’ll find some way to manage,” Bo snarks over her shoulder. It’ll be harder, definitely, but she’s probably not going to make it out of this arena alive anyway—she might as well go out trying to do a little bit of good.

***

“ I thought you didn’t want to join my little suicide mission?” Bo goads, when Tamsin catches up to her fifteen minutes later.

“ Changed my mind,” Tamsin says with a defensive shrug, shoving her hands in her pockets. “If nothing else, this’ll be a prime chance to take out some of the other tributes.”

There’s more to it than that—something Tamsin isn’t telling her. “Seems like something you would have thought of right away,” Bo points out, eyeing Tamsin carefully.

“ Well, I didn’t,” Tamsin grumbles after a significant pause, squinting at one of the nearby trees.

Before Bo can dig any deeper, Tamsin yanks her off her feet. Something whizzes overhead as they land in an indelicate heap.

“ Trap,” Tamsin pants, extricating herself and flopping to the ground.

“ Thanks,” Bo replies, in between attempts to catch her breath. There’s a flash of white nearby, a crumpled piece of paper that Bo is pretty sure she didn’t see before. “What’s that?”

Tamsin follows her gaze, and in one sharp, jerky movement she snatches it up and shoves it deep into her pants pocket. “Nothing,” she says unconvincingly. “So what’s your brilliant rescue plan?”

Bo narrows her eyes at the blatant diversion, but decides to let Tamsin get away with it. For now, those humans are more important, and Tamsin’s help will be invaluable.

The only problem? She doesn’t  have a plan. “Uh, about that…”

***

“ Ugh.” Bo wrinkles her nose in disgust. The body in front of them is so badly decomposed that the only way to identify it is by the copper hair growing out of its partially eroded scalp.

“ Looks like Nora won’t be a problem anymore,” Tamsin remarks dryly, nudging a rotting leg with her foot.

“ She looks like she’s been dead for weeks,” Bo says, holding her hand to her face to block out the smell. “How is that possible?”

“ Marija,” Tamsin answers immediately, kneeling down to carefully check the body for weapons or supplies. “From Eleven. She’s a zemyna.”

“ A xena-what now?”

“ Zemyna,” Tamsin repeats, rolling her eyes. “They can manipulate the entire spectrum of life and death. In this case I’d guess she sped up Nora’s life, and not in a fun way—forced her to age, die and decompose probably in a matter of minutes.”

Bo frowns, peering at the body. “How can you can tell all of that?”

Tamsin shakes her head, laughing in a way that’s somewhere between patronizing and affectionate. “You poor, ignorant baby Fae.”

“ You know,” Bo starts irritably, eyes darting cautiously around as she paces the immediate area, “instead of insulting me for my lack of knowledge, you could always try, I don’t know, answering my questions. Maybe then I wouldn’t be so  _ignorant_. ”

“ Yeah, but that wouldn’t be as fun,” Tamsin quips, rising back to her feet. “There’s nothing worthwhile here. Marija must have been pretty thorough.”

Bo’s feet stop in place, her eyes fixed on a second body she’s only just noticed. “Or someone else was,” she offers uneasily. The woman is face down, but easily recognizable by the embroidered number eleven on her sleeve. Blood is oozing out of a gaping wound in Marija’s back, pooling around her in the underbrush.

“ That accounts for the two cannon shots we heard,” Tamsin notes dispassionately. “We’d better keep moving, the hovercraft will—” her voice cuts off abruptly, and she motions for Bo to be quiet.

After a moment, Bo hears what caught Tamsin’s attention: the sound of distant footfalls, getting farther and farther away. Then she catches the look in Tamsin’s eyes. “Oh no,” Bo hisses. “I’m going to the Cornucopia.”

“ You think there’s anyone in this arena right now who isn’t?” Tamsin retorts. “If we follow, maybe we can take them out—” At Bo’s alarmed look, she rolls her eyes. “— _ stop them _ before they have a chance to hurt one of your precious humans. Now get your perky ass in gear.”

Bo can’t resist smirking. “You think my ass is perky?”

“ Shut up.”

***

It’s almost too easy to track Marija’s killer; whoever it is, they’re either too stupid, too arrogant, or too distracted to bother with stealth. Bo and Tamsin finally catch up with him just as he reaches the small camp where Kasey stands impatiently waiting. Off to the side, the slight woman from Three sits on the ground, fiddling with a hinged contraption—most likely some kind of trap. She looks up with wide eyes as Liam barrels into the area.

“ She got Nora,” Liam pants, clutching his stomach. He tosses his sword to the ground, the hilt still caked with Marija’s blood. “That bitch from Eleven, she—” he cuts off abruptly, swallows back a retch. “Man, I don’t know  _ what _ she was.”

Kasey looks unimpressed. “You took care of her, right?”

“ Yeah.” Despite how shaken he is, a proud, sort of dim smile pulls at Liam’s mouth. “She wasn’t expecting her target to disappear before she could focus on it. Got her in the back.”

“ You made sure she was dead, right?” Kasey pins him with a critical glare. “We’re gonna have enough to worry about with Tamsin and that skanky succubus.”

“ I-I think so,” Liam says uncertainly. At Kasey’s sharp look, he rushes on. “I mean, yeah! There were two cannon shots, right?”

“ Ugh, you are completely useless,” Kasey groans, exasperated.

“ There were two shots,” the woman from Three confirms quietly without looking up from her work.

Kasey seems to tense further, if that’s even possible; her eyes dart to the hunched woman, then meet Liam’s meaningfully. “Can I talk to you?  _ Alone _ ?” She doesn’t wait for a reply, curling her fingers in Liam’s jacket and dragging him along. “Watch the camp,” she calls over her shoulder, not sparing the woman a second glance.

Bo meets Tamsin’s eyes, pulse racing as they eavesdrop from behind nearby trees. Tamsin nods ever so slightly, a grim smile on her face as she prepares to attack. 


	19. Chapter 19

Fear fills the woman’s eyes as Tamsin holds a blade to her throat.

“Wait!” Bo puts a hand on Tamsin’s arm. “She’s not even fighting back.”

“Which couldn't possibly be an act,” Tamsin snarks, holding firm. “You know, to make us drop our guard so it’s easier to kill us?"

“Well she’s obviously not a threat with your knife to her throat,” Bo retorts. “We could at least talk to her first, find out what she knows.”

Tamsin inhales sharply through her nose, gritting her teeth as she turns her head to look at Bo. “Kasey and Liam could be back any second,” she says with forced patience. “When they do, you and I are outnumbered.”

“Maybe she could help us.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Tamsin snorts. There’s that look again, that one that says Bo is being intolerably stupid. “She’s helping  _ them _ .”

“Not by choice,” the woman pipes up softly, drawing Bo and Tamsin’s attention. “They were going to kill me, but I convinced them I could be useful.”

Bo flashes Tamsin a victorious smirk before turning back to the other woman. “What’s your name?” she asks gently.

“Ylva,” is the woman’s meek reply.

“Nice to meet you, Ylva,” Bo says politely, enjoying the way Tamsin cringes next to her. “I’m Bo, and the homicidal maniac with the knife to your throat is Tamsin.” Squeezing sharply at Tamsin’s forearm, Bo injects her voice with false sweetness. “Tamsin, why don’t we take the knife away from Ylva’s throat?”

Tamsin pulls away with a huff, sheathing the knife and crossing her arms over her chest. “Idiot,” she mutters under her breath.

“Don’t mind her,” Bo says, rolling her eyes and giving Ylva a reassuring smile. “As far as I can tell, this is as friendly as she gets.”

A small smile pulls at Ylva’s lips as she rubs at her throat. “I’m just glad she listens to you.”

Tamsin’s eyes pop near out of her head at the thought, but she can’t really have much of an argument to make; she  _ did _ just refrain from killing Ylva at Bo’s request, if the mere fact that Bo is still alive isn’t damning enough. She ends up merely scowling, beaten but clearly unhappy about it.

“So Ylva,” Bo begins, grinning at Tamsin’s brooding display, “you any good with locks? We’re kind of on a mission…”

***

It can’t be as easy as it looks. The flat expanse ahead of them is empty, save for the Cornucopia and its horrific offerings. There’s no sign of traps or hidden security measures, even as they move closer in. Ylva takes the lead, sharp eyes scrutinizing every square inch of dirt.

“You do realize,” Tamsin murmurs, holding Liam’s sword at the ready, “that it’s entirely possible that the shackles aren’t designed to open.”

“Then we’ll cut through them somehow,” Bo retorts.

“With what? Your knife?” Tamsin sneers. “I know you don’t expect me to ruin a perfectly good sword for the sake of a few humans we probably can’t even save.”

Bo shakes her head, chuckling mostly to herself. When Tamsin saw the state Liam was keeping the blade in, she nearly had a heart attack; now the blade is freshly cleaned and polished to a shine, all somehow achieved during their short walk to the Cornucopia. “Let’s just see what we’re dealing with first.”

The rest of their walk is suspiciously uneventful; soon the line of humans is before them, staring up with varying degrees of fear and apathy. Ylva kneels in front of a middle-aged man, examining the shackles at his wrists and ankles. Bo does the same with the young woman next to him; she can’t be more than twenty-five, though there’s a haunted look in her eyes that makes her seem older.

The captives’ feet, it seems, are merely chained to one another. The chain connecting their wrists, however, is attached firmly to another chain that leads through a large metal panel on the ground in front of them; it’s that chain they’ll have to deal with if they want to free the humans.

When she happens to glance up, Bo notices Tamsin pacing idly in the entrance to the Cornucopia, seemingly staring off into space. “You could always help, you know,” she calls out, annoyed.

Tamsin scoffs and lifts her eyebrows in response. “I never said anything about actively participating in your misguided little rescue plan,” she says, then shrugs dismissively. “This was the logical place to come, so I came.”

“Sure,” Bo drawls, barely concealing a smirk.

“But on an unrelated note, you might want to check out that control panel.” Tamsin smirks, pointing her sword at the back wall. Sure enough, there’s a small metal panel at around chest height that looks to have a handle.

Bo meets Ylva’s eyes and nods toward it, letting Ylva go first to check for traps. It almost doesn’t surprise her that they don’t find any; the rest of this “feast” has been ridiculously easy, so why wouldn’t this be?

The metal panel is indeed a door; Ylva swings it open to reveal a small monitor and pull-out keyboard. “It does seem to be some kind of release mechanism,” she says, tapping at the keys. “I think I can overload it, but it’ll take a few minutes.”

“No worries,” Bo says with a shrug. “I’m sure we’ve got a little more time before—”

“Oh TamTam, how did I know I’d find you here?” Kasey stands imposingly in the entrance of the Cornucopia, with Liam at her side. They must have slipped around the back or something; no way would Tamsin have missed their approach otherwise.

“I honestly can’t tell you Kasey,” Tamsin replies conversationally. She gives her weapon a little twirl before settling into a fighting stance. “I didn’t think you were capable of higher thought.”

“That’s mine,” Liam growls, his eyes fixed on the sword in her hands. All he’s brandishing is a moderate-sized dagger.

“Come and get it big boy,” Tamsin taunts, spreading her arms in invitation.

Liam lunges at Tamsin, but before their blades can clash he disappears in a wisp of green flame. He appears again behind her, dagger raised to strike, but she whirls and parries the blow easily.

“Hey!” Kasey snaps, joining the fray with a knife of her own. “Back off, Liam! This is my kill.”

Then Kasey and Tamsin are trading blows, while Liam turns his attention to the back of the Cornucopia. Bo contemplates drawing the knife she got from Bruce, but even now with the stakes so high she’s not sure she can kill. If she can get close enough to him, maybe she won’t need a weapon.

“Keep at it,” Bo murmurs over her shoulder, moving away from Ylva to meet his advance.

“The famous succubus,” Liam sneers, dagger raised. He lunges at her, and then he’s simply not there anymore.

She barely manages to dodge the attack that suddenly comes from behind, whirling around and catching Liam’s wrist before the blow can land. “You don’t really want to fight me, do you?” she purrs seductively, pulsing charm into him. “There are much more interesting things we could be doing.”

At first, Bo thinks it’s worked; he drops his gaze, tilts his head closer to hers—then wraps his free hand around her throat. “You know, any other time I might take you up on that, just for the fun of it,” he says, digging his fingers deep into the tender flesh. His eyes are hard and half-crazed; the games haven’t been kind to him. “But I’m not an idiot. You’re gonna have to try harder than that to kill me.”

Bo stumbles back a step as the wrist she’s gripping and the hand clutching her throat both disappear. A split-second later, Liam is a couple of feet away, raising his dagger again. Almost automatically, Bo reaches for the knife at her hip, drawing it up to parry his lunge.

It goes on like that for several moments—Liam pressing the attack, Bo barely managing to hold him off. Finally she manages to land a solid kick to Liam’s chest, giving herself a much needed few seconds to breathe. She’s been so focused on keeping up with Liam that she’s thrown when she glances up and finds that they’re a good twenty or thirty feet away from the Cornucopia’s entrance.

A mechanical whir temporarily distracts them both from the fight. The metal panels in front of each human are sliding open, but the captives don’t seem to be happy about being released. The reason rapidly becomes apparent: the metal panels served as doors. Now almost in unison, a large creature leaps out of each pit as the humans scramble backward as quickly as their shackles will allow.

They’re vicious beasts, unlike anything Bo’s seen even in the most disturbing of Trick’s old books. Mostly wolf-like in shape, their dirty fur is matted into short dreadlocks, whipping through the air as they snap powerful fang-filled jaws. But it’s their eyes that make Bo’s blood run cold—pale green with an unnatural, sinister glow.

Liam is the first to look away, and Bo almost fails to block his next attack. As it is, her knife is jarred from her grip; it falls uselessly to the dirt as Liam raises his dagger for another swing. Bo’s heart leaps into her throat as she drops to the ground, curling her fingers around the handle of her knife as Liam’s arm sweeps through thin air.

Then he’s on top of her, a knee on either side of her as he clamps his hand around her wrist. Bo rocks and thrashes, but all she manages to do is roll over beneath him. Great; now she gets to look at his smug face while he kills her.

“Liam!” Kasey screeches from across the battlefield. “She’s getting away!”

In the single second that Liam’s gaze leaves her, Bo is just about able to realize that she’s totally, royally, and epically screwed. He might have dragged this out, but it sounds like he just ran out of time—and so did Bo.

It doesn’t hurt as much as Bo thought it would, when the dagger slides into her belly. Liam launches back to his feet, taking off after Ylva and it’s not until her fingers press against blood-soaked fabric that Bo really registers what’s happened.

Stomach wounds are bad—she remembers Dyson telling her that much. She’ll die, but she’ll die slowly and in a lot of pain. It starts to make itself known now, a burning throb that gradually increases in intensity until her vision starts to spot with red. She presses her hand more firmly against the wound, but her shirt and skin alike are slick with blood.

At the Cornucopia, only a few humans are still alive. The chains anchoring the humans to the ground weren’t driven into stakes, or otherwise locked down; they’re each attached to the collar of one of the beasts, making it entirely impossible to escape. Bile rises in Bo’s throat as she sees for the first time what Tamsin tried to tell her over and over: the Capitol always intended those humans to die.

Absurdly, Bo feels a laugh bubble up in her throat. It’s ridiculous, how carefully they were watching for traps.

She should have seen it: the feast  _ was _ the trap. 


	20. Chapter 20

When Bo wakes up, her abdomen feels like it’s on fire, but the wound has been cleaned and dressed—with actual gauze, no less. Her fingers brush over the bandage as her eyes flutter open to reveal the cave she shared with Tamsin earlier.

“I told you so,” Tamsin says with a smirk. She’s propped up against the back wall of the cave, just a few feet away from Bo was sleeping.

“I had to try,” Bo shoots back, wincing as she tugs herself back so she can sit up next to Tamsin.

“Watch it, Hotpants,” Tamsin warns, but there’s not as much bite in it as there used to be. “You kinda suffered a mortal wound. An appropriate end to a fairy tale as doomed as yours.”

Bo rolls her eyes, slumping heavily against the wall. “I couldn’t just stand by and not  _ try _ to help.”

Tamsin snorts. “Like you couldn’t stand by and let that brat go to her death? How’s that one working out for you?”

“Not so good,” Bo has to admit. A shiver racks her body; when did it get so cold? She peers over at Tamsin, suddenly struck by a much more important question. “Why are you helping me?”

For a few seconds Tamsin just gapes. “I figure two on two is better odds,” she finally says with an unconvincing shrug.

“Uh huh.” Bo doesn’t bother to try hiding her smirk; she doesn’t have the energy. Then Tamsin’s words sink in. “Wait, two?”

“There was another cannon shot,” Tamsin says, dropping her eyes to her lap. “While I was dragging you out of there. I figure between her and Liam, Ylva didn’t really stand a chance.”

“You never know,” Bo offers with waning optimism. “Maybe she managed to take one of them out with her traps.”

That  _ look _ flashes through Tamsin’s eyes, and it seems to take physical effort for her to hold back her first response. “Anything’s possible, I guess,” is the best she’s able to manage. “We’ll find out in a couple hours.”

Bo wants to call her on it, ask why Tamsin’s being so  _ nice _ all of a sudden, but a part of her is afraid that she already knows the answer: she's dying, and by some freak coincidence Tamsin has found the one tiny ounce of compassion she possesses.

It’s colder now; her arms and legs are freezing, goosebumps covering her skin. Her eyes are drooping, despite every effort she makes to keep them open. It won’t be long now.

Pain sears its way up Bo’s chest as Tamsin straddles her in one smooth motion. Bo frowns. “Tamsin, what—”

Her words are stopped by Tamsin’s mouth, firm and unforgiving against her own. Her body’s reaction is instantaneous; hunger claws at her chest as heat floods between her legs.

Tamsin pulls back, tearing a whimper from Bo’s throat. She stays close though, her breath hot on Bo’s lips. “Feed,” is her one murmured instruction before she tangles her fingers in Bo’s hair and kisses her again.

Bo is so weak, so overwhelmed, that she almost doesn’t even need the permission. She groans, nips at Tamsin’s lower lip before taking a deep pull of her chi.

_ God_ . Tamsin tastes incredible, like icy wind and darkness and pride. Bo’s never tasted any chi like it. She raises her hands to cup Tamsin’s face, to pull her in deeper, but Tamsin catches her wrists in an iron grip and guides them down to her hips. “Hair’s off-limits,” Tamsin mutters when Bo pauses for a breath.

It’s a simple enough rule, considering what Bo’s getting out of it. The ache in her side is already receding, slowly but surely; she can feel the flesh knitting back together as she sucks in more of Tamsin’s lifeforce. Her fingers curl around the belt loops of Tamsin’s pants, roughly tugging their hips together, and Tamsin fails to disguise a gasp of pain. Bo breaks off the flow of chi immediately, ducking away when Tamsin leans in for another kiss.

“We both know you need more than that,” Tamsin huffs, her shoulders pushing hard against Bo's hands.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Bo murmurs, fighting back just as hard.

“Like you could,” Tamsin scoffs. She stops pushing and instead reaches for Bo’s hand, guiding it to cover her breast and squeezing. “I’m fine, Succulette. Take what you need.”

Heat floods Bo’s body, chasing away any remnants of the chill from before. She’s injured, weak, hungry—that tiny voice in the back of her mind insisting this is a bad idea is getting more and more difficult to hear.

Then Tamsin rocks her hips hard into Bo’s, tugs at her scalp just enough to sting, and any resolve Bo might have left crumbles. She palms Tamsin’s breast roughly with one hand, dropping the other from Tamsin’s shoulder to her ass. Tamsin gasps into Bo’s mouth when sure fingers find her nipple, tugging and pinching through her shirt and sports bra; Bo swallows the sound gladly, savoring the wet slide of Tamsin’s lips against her own.

The rocking of Tamsin’s hips grows urgent, and Bo abandons her breast to fumble with the fly of Tamsin’s pants. A tiny growl sounds in her throat as she yanks the button free of its hole, tugs the zipper open in one sharp pull.

It’s not the best position, definitely not the best circumstances—but right now the only thing Bo cares about is getting past all these irritating barriers. She wriggles her hand into Tamsin’s pants, slips her fingers under the soft elastic of her underwear, then groans loudly; Tamsin is slick beneath her touch, searing heat grasping at Bo’s fingers as she slides two inside.

Tamsin groans, hands tightening in Bo’s hair as she rocks brazenly into each thrust. It’s over all too soon, Tamsin shuddering and clenching around Bo’s fingers; Bo presses the base of her hand against Tamsin’s clit just to draw it out a little longer, thoroughly enjoying the little gasp that stutters over Tamsin’s lips at the added sensation.

For a few long moments they just sit there like that, panting against each other and occasionally meeting one another’s eyes.

“Are you…” Tamsin finally attempts, less than successful at hiding the breathlessness of her voice.

Bo’s almost disappointed to find that she’s almost as good as new; her abdomen feels fine, though she’s still a bit lightheaded from the blood loss, and as a pleasant side effect her hunger is comfortably sated. But the spasms around her fingers are slowing, and the awkwardness of the situation is setting in.

“Yeah! Yeah, I’m-I’m fine,” Bo stammers, sliding out of Tamsin. She tries to ignore the wanton hiss Tamsin makes, but it sends a jolt of arousal shooting between her legs nonetheless. “Thanks,” she says lamely, acutely aware of the sticky wetness drying on her fingers.

“Yeah, well.” Tamsin shrugs, now staunchly avoiding Bo’s gaze. She slides off of Bo, kneeling on the floor as she refastens her pants. “It was a one time deal. Don’t go expecting me to fix your broken ass again.”

“At least it’s still perky,” Bo teases.

“We’ll see how perky it is after you take first watch,” Tamsin retorts. “Since you were passed out most of the day.”

Bo raises an eyebrow. “Uh, edge of death, I think that warrants a nap.”

Tamsin shakes her head, fighting a smile. “Go clean yourself up, Succulette. I’m going to sleep.”

Possibly for the first time ever, Bo does as she’s told; she crawls out of the cave, dipping her hands in the stream to wash away the remnants of Tamsin’s arousal. By the time she crawls back inside—after a leisurely drink of water and a few minutes agonizing over whether the other tributes might attack tonight—Tamsin is passed out on her side, her back to the wall of the cave.

She looks like a different person when she’s sleeping; not like some innocent angel, or some cliche like that, just…softer, somehow. Her brow is creased even in sleep, her mouth pulled into a lazy scowl; whatever she’s dreaming about, it’s definitely not happy. Not that Tamsin would ever admit it; her pride wouldn’t allow it.

Bo’s eyes wander idly over Tamsin’s form, and suddenly she’s struck with a memory from earlier today—Tamsin snatching that piece of paper up, shoving it into her pocket like it was some dirty little secret.

Is it still there? Bo chews on her lower lip, pondering her options, but in the end her curiosity wins out. It could be important—and if it’s not, it’ll probably be something fun to taunt her about.

Gently pressing one hand to Tamsin’s forehead, Bo sends a gentle pulse of charm into her skin—just enough to keep her comfortable and happy while her other hand moves lower. Tamsin shifts just as Bo’s fingers brush the opening of her pocket, and Bo’s heart leaps into her throat; she settles again quickly, and Bo breathes a quiet sigh of relief. Slowly, carefully, she slips her fingers into Tamsin’s pocket. Down at the bottom, past a multi-tool and a small tub of lip balm, is the crumpled piece of paper she seeks. 

It’s badly wrinkled, but when she unfolds it the three words emblazoned on it are clear enough:

TAKE HER OUT


	21. Chapter 21

Bo stares intently at the note, as if some kind of explanation will appear if she just focuses long enough. The intent of the note seems clear, but then why would Tamsin go out of her way to drag Bo away from the Cornucopia, dress her wounds? To say nothing of going  _ way  _ above and beyond to heal her. What is she playing at?

“Okay, well that’s creepy,” Tamsin remarks dryly, as her eyes flutter open to find Bo hovering at her side.

“Yeah? Probably about as creepy as finding out the woman who just saved your life is supposed to be killing you,” Bo retorts, giving the note a little wave.

Tamsin’s eyes narrow as she rises, sitting up in one smooth, feral movement. “You went through my  _ pockets _ ?”

“Oh, like you haven’t done worse,” Bo scoffs. “And don’t change the subject.”

“It’s not exactly news that I’m supposed to kill you, Sweetcheeks,” Tamsin grits out, snatching the note from Bo’s hand. “It’s kind of the reason we’re all here.”

Bo crosses her arms and raises a critical eyebrow. “And what, they just thought  _ you _ needed an extra special reminder?”

“Maybe,” Tamsin snaps. “What, I’m supposed to know what goes through the Gamemakers’ heads?”

“You got that yesterday, didn’t you?” Bo asks, ignoring Tamsin’s question. “When I set out to go save those people and you stayed behind—until by some mysterious coincidence you changed your mind.”

Tamsin shrugs defensively. “So?”

“So is that note what changed your mind?” Bo presses. There’s something Tamsin’s not telling her—well, probably a lot of somethings.

“No,” Tamsin replies quickly, then stalls. “…sort of.”

And what is  _ that _ supposed to mean? “So was all this some plot to kill me in a particularly epic way?” Bo asks, mystified. “Because I can’t figure out why you would go to so much trouble to keep me alive when you want me dead.”

“That makes two of us,” Tamsin mutters under her breath, jaw clenched and shoulders tense. “And I never said I wanted you dead.”

Oh. Well that’s new. “Does that mean you don’t?”

Something in Tamsin’s face—some measure of control—shatters as Bo looks on. Her eyes flash with that cold fire Bo remembers from a lifetime ago in the training rooms, a cruel smirk on her lips. “Maybe it just means I wanted to find out what a succubus is like in the sack before I killed you.”

“Cute.” Bo gives her a withering glare, determined to conceal the sharp sting she feels at Tamsin’s words. It certainly didn’t  feel like Tamsin was in it just for the thrill, but she’s been wrong about people before. “And here I thought you might actually  care .”

Before Bo can blink, Tamsin’s fingers are twisted in the front of her shirt; the collar bites at the back of her neck as Tamsin yanks her closer.

“You need to get something through your thick head, Princess,” Tamsin says coldly. “We’re allies now, but once we deal with those two idiots all bets are off. They’re only going to let one of us leave this arena alive, and I’m sure as hell not going as far as  _ dying _ to save your ass.” She ends in a hiss, shoving Bo back as she releases her shirt.

For a second Tamsin’s vitriol leaves Bo stunned. It almost seems like  too much , like it can’t possibly be sincere, but that’s probably just wishful thinking; it was stupid to think she might find anything good in this place. “Fine,” she finally chokes out, pushing herself to her feet. “Well give me a heads up when you do decide to kill me, would you? I like to know where I stand.”

Bo doesn’t look back at Tamsin, just storms out of the cave as gracefully as the low ceiling allows. When she’s a good twenty feet away, she stops to breathe. The sun is beginning to rise, and there’s a clean, crisp quality to the morning air. With the stream trickling and stumbling over stones in the stream and wild birds giving their first weary chirps of the day, she can almost pretend she’s somewhere nice. It’s kind of…tranquil.

The sound of irregular footfalls breaks the stillness, quick and frantic and rapidly growing closer. Bo backs up toward the entrance of the cave, cursing herself for leaving her knife inside. She could call out to Tamsin, but she can’t manage to convince her pride to go for it; not after that argument.

A figure breaks into view when Bo is still a few feet from the cave; Bo freezes in place, shock and delight and concern all swirling through her. “Ylva!” She rushes to the Ylva’s side to assess her injuries; she’s limping, no doubt due to whatever is causing blood to seep through the bottom of her pants, and one hand is clutching her side. “Here, let’s go sit down and get you cleaned up.” Bo slips her arm under Ylva’s, taking some of her weight as she helps the woman to the bank of the stream.

“No, we can’t—” Ylva shakes her head and pulls away, looking scared. “We have to hide. He’s coming.”

“He—Liam?” Bo asks, eyes widening. She lifts her head, listens for another set of footsteps; there’s nothing. “I don’t hear anyone else.”

Ylva wraps her arms around herself. “I killed the other one, the girl. He…wasn’t happy. He’s going to kill me.”

“No he’s not,” Bo assures with a smile. Suddenly her concerns for her own pride seem trivial; she raises her voice, calling in the direction of the cave. “Tamsin!” 

 

Tamsin appears in the entrance to the cave with an irritated scowl on her face, but the speed with which she does it is telling in itself.

“She’s hurt,” Bo says. She slips an arm around Ylva’s shoulders to try to guide her to the ground, but Ylva resists again. Tossing a glance Tamsin’s way, Bo explains, “And she says Liam’s on his way.”

The look on Tamsin’s face is a curious one; Bo expected disdain, hoped for grudging assistance, but her expression is pure intense vigilance—focused entirely on Ylva. “Get away from her, Bo.”

Bo frowns, confused. “Why? What’s going—”

She’s cut off by a forearm looping around her neck, pulling her against a body much stronger and taller than Ylva’s. “Damnit, TamTam. You couldn’t make this easy, could you?”

“You know me,” Tamsin cracks with a shrug, the tense set of her body belying the blase tone of voice. She advances slowly, her eyes locked on Bo and her captor. “Any opportunity to cause trouble.”

Taking advantage of the split in Kasey’s attention, Bo curls her fingers around the forearm at her throat, closes her eyes and concentrates on pouring as much charm as she can into the contact. Kasey relaxes for a brief moment, and Bo can see her chance at escape in her grasp—then Kasey’s arm slams back down harder than before, making Bo choke and cough.

“God, you really are one-note, aren’t you?” Kasey growls and jerks Bo’s chin up, pressing a knife to the skin just beneath her forearm’s grip. “Try that again and—”

“And what? You’ll kill me?” Bo challenges, feeling her pulse pound against the sharp metal. “Are you really planning to do anything else?”

“Actually she is,” Tamsin cuts in, her gaze darkening as it focuses solely on Kasey. Then as she advances, everything  about her darkens—her face, gaunt and almost skeletal, shining black eyes ringed with thick dark circles. “She’s planning to turn her ass around and leave, isn’t that right Kasey?”

A violent shudder grasps at Bo’s spine; she’s not the target, but the look on Tamsin’s face seems to drain any hint of warmth from the air around them. She can’t imagine what it feels like for Kasey.

It seems to work, though; the blade slowly falls away from Bo’s throat, followed by Kasey’s arm. Bo doesn’t wait for instruction; she immediately ducks out of Kasey’s reach and attempts to slip away—then Kasey overcomes Tamsin’s power and tries to retake control. Her knife catches Bo in the side, slicing open a long gash as Bo’s momentum carries her to the ground.

Bo’s shoulder hits the dirt hard, and she winces at the added pain as she presses her hands to her throbbing side. It’s not as bad as yesterday—at least she doesn’t think so; if she can just stop the bleeding she should be fine.

Through red-spotted vision, Bo watches the fight already in progress. Tamsin has knocked Kasey back away from Bo, and they’re circling each other with weapons drawn.

“Kasey, Kasey,” Tamsin tuts, twirling a jagged, curved blade around her pointer finger. “I’d tell you to stick to being pretty, but you’re not very good at that either.” She launches the blade at Kasey’s face.

Knocking it aside with her own weapon, Kasey looses a feral snarl and launches herself at Tamsin. Her free hand sinks into blonde hair while Tamsin is busy dodging her knife; she comes back with a fistful of it. “You’re one to talk,” she sneers. “I’m surprised that rickety old body has held up this long.”

Tamsin’s leg snaps out to deliver a hard kick to Kasey’s stomach, knocking her a few feet away. Then she rests her hands on her knees, keeping her gaze locked on Kasey as she catches her breath. Bo’s not sure, but Tamsin seems a little slower than usual—a little more tired.

“You should have given up decades ago TamTam,” Kasey taunts, lunging forward with her knife again and smirking when Tamsin only just manages to deflect it. “But I’ll be happy to accept your surrender now.”

“Over my dead body,” Tamsin growls, launching another throwing blade. It veers off course, nicking Kasey in the arm before embedding itself in a nearby tree.

Anger and pain glint in Kasey’s eyes; she feints with her dagger, then jabs at Tamsin’s side with her other fist. “That can be arranged,” she says as Tamsin doubles over in pain. Before Tamsin can recover, Kasey’s knife plunges into her gut. She grins viciously, giving the blade a little twist. “And I’ll even throw in your little girlfriend’s body as a bonus.”

Horror floods Bo’s senses as she watches Tamsin drop to the ground, accompanied by something frantic and powerful that she’s never felt before. Tamsin is clutching at her stomach with bloody fingers, trying stubbornly to get up and rejoin the fight; she doesn’t manage to faze Kasey a bit, her efforts too weak to be a real threat.

Suddenly the gash in her side doesn’t seem to matter; nothing matters except getting out of this alive. This new feeling swells up in her, like hunger but amplified by a million times—as she rises to her feet, her arms spread in front of her almost as if trying to carry the massive weight of this power. Her skin feels hot, electrified; her hair whips around her face in the absence of a breeze.

The murderous intent in Kasey’s eyes morphs into a wary sort of almost-fear; it doesn’t take more than a second or two for her to start backing away, then to break into a run.

Bo doesn’t give chase; she’s too focused on Tamsin, shivering and coughing as she bleeds out into her hands. She drops to her side at once, brushing Tamsin’s hands aside so the bloodied shirt can be pulled up.

What she finds fills her with horrified guilt: a mere few inches away from the stab wound, visible beneath bright streaks of blood, is a large angry bruise—too large and too developed to have been caused by Kasey’s recent blow. “You said you were fine,” Bo chides, remembering how Tamsin flinched last night. Tears sting at her eyes involuntarily as she shrugs out of her jacket; is this  _ her _ fault? “I never would have—”

“S-shut it, Succulette,” Tamsin interrupts, her breath coming in shallow stuttered gasps. “‘m a big girl. Knew what I was doing.”

“Obviously not,” Bo snaps, her voice shaking as she presses the jacket firmly to Tamsin’s wound. “Just hang in there, I’ll—I’ll fix this, I just have to—”

“Stop.” Tamsin manages to lift her hand to cover Bo’s, seeking out her eyes. “You’re h-hurt too.”

Bo shakes her head. “That doesn’t matter.”

“Yes it does.” Tamsin closes her eyes, gathering strength. “Don’t have much time. You have to take my chi.”

“What?” Tears spill down Bo’s cheeks as Tamsin’s words register. “But—no, Tamsin, that would—”

Tamsin cuts her off with a weak grunt. “‘m dying anyway, g-genius.” A cough racks her body, tiny droplets of red spattering her mouth. “‘f you don’t take it, ‘s just gonna go to waste.”

It horrifies Bo to recognize that Tamsin has a point. Whatever’s left of Tamsin’s chi might just give her the edge she needs to stand a chance against Liam and Kasey.

“Tick tock,” Tamsin murmurs, her voice barely more than a whisper. “Do it already.”

Guilt surrounds Bo as she leans over Tamsin—in the violent lurching of her own insides, in the coppery taste of blood on Tamsin’s lips and the exhilarating rush of her chi. It’s not long before Tamsin is slack beneath her, eyes glazed over and half-closed.

Stifling a sob, Bo leans down to place a gentle kiss on Tamsin’s forehead before standing up. Their gear—well, her gear now—is still in the cave; she’ll need to take stock of what she has, come up with a plan.

It’s time to finish this. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *ducks behind cover*
> 
> Don't hate me! I assure you, Tamsin's story is just beginning ;)


	22. Chapter 22

An overwhelming numbness suffuses Bo as she reenters the cave. Tamsin’s pack is in the middle of the floor, already mostly packed; she must have been getting ready to leave when Bo called to her. That makes it easier now—Bo needs to go through it all, but not here, not when the hovercraft will be coming soon.

Her throat is thick with tears as she strips the weapon harness from Tamsin’s body. The thought of leaving Tamsin to be taken by them, to be experimented on or otherwise tossed aside on some trash heap, makes Bo’s stomach twist violently; but she doesn’t have a choice, and she knows Tamsin would want it this way.

She’s a few minutes away when she hears the hovercraft approach. Blinking back tears, she picks up her pace; only when she hears the vehicle depart does she dare to pause and catch her breath.

Somewhere out there, Kasey and Liam are looking for her. Glancing cautiously around her, Bo kneels behind a large cluster of foliage and opens Tamsin’s pack. There’s a fair amount of food left, crackers and jerky and the like, as well as a full water bottle. Along with that, there’s a variety of medical supplies—gauze, painkillers, surgical tape—and essentials like matches and twine.

None of it gives Bo any ideas, though she certainly could have used any of it a few days ago. She’s had to learn to hold her own in a fight—not everyone is happy to have a succubus move to town, especially if she won’t give them the time of day—but this…this is different. The stakes are so much higher than they’ve ever been, and so far Bo hasn’t done too well when it comes to fighting for her life against  one opponent, let alone two.

At the bottom of the pack, Bo finds a crumpled piece of paper—like the one she pulled out of Tamsin’s pocket, only this one bears a different message:

_ Consider the succubus your next target. _

When did Tamsin get this? Was it before they met up in the woods, or did she somehow manage to conceal it from Bo? Did Bruce know about it?

And what does it even  _ mean _ ? Target for what? Tamsin acted more like a bodyguard than an assassin, but Bo can’t really see her in that kind of profession. Besides, who’s worried about their job when they’re supposed to be fighting for their lives?

Bo crumples the paper in her fist with a frustrated sigh. She’ll never know now; the answers died back there at the stream with Tamsin. All she can do now is…

What? What  _ can _ she do? Go after Kasey and Liam like the Gamemakers want her to, probably get herself killed in the process? She could run, try to stay ahead of them until one of them kills the other, but once it’s down to two she won’t have a choice. Unless Liam and Kasey manage to kill each other at the same time, Bo is going to have to face one of them. And what then?

They want her to fight, of course. They want a brutal, epic final battle that will bring all of Panem to its knees—and what choice does she have, really? If she doesn’t fight, she’ll only make it easier to kill her. Unless…

If Liam is the one to survive, she might have a chance; she saw how shaken he was after witnessing Nora’s death, though he tried to cover it up. Maybe she can convince him to join her in not fighting, to force the Capitol to a stalemate.

While she’s repacking her gear, Bo hears a lone cannon shot pierce the quiet. One down, one to go—but which one?

***

It’s with disappointment and no small amount of trepidation that Bo takes in the sight that greets her as she enters the clearing around the Cornucopia. Kasey spots her from the far side and prowls toward her, gripping the bloodied hilt of what used to be Liam’s sword. Her hair is wild around her face, almost entirely escaped from the tight ponytail she had it in before, and blood oozes from a cut that stretches from her eyebrow to her temple. She doesn’t seem to notice any of it; her focus is entirely—and murderously—on Bo.

Flexing her empty fingers at her sides, Bo shoves down the fear that this won’t work. It’s her only plan, her only option now; she just has to hope Kasey can be convinced. 

“ We don’t have to fight!” Bo calls out, her voice carrying over the battlefield. Kasey continues to advance, her demeanor unchanged. “Look, I—” Bo waves her empty hands, gestures at herself. “I’m unarmed, okay? I’m not going to hurt you.” 

“ Then you’re an idiot,” Kasey replies as she gets closer. When she gets to about thirty feet away from Bo she lifts the sword with both hands, readying a powerful swing.

“ Are you that much of a coward?” Bo tries, taking a different approach. The flash of rage in Kasey’s eyes could be a good sign or a very, very bad one. “Do the humans scare you so much that you’ll just do what they want without a second thought?”

Kasey charges, and Bo ducks easily under the haphazard swing. When Kasey’s arms come up again, Bo stops the downward blow by catching Kasey’s wrists in as firm a grip as she can manage.

“ You think I need an excuse to kill your skanky ass?” Kasey sneers, yanking her arms back out of Bo’s grasp. “That I’m  _ afraid _ of those miserable, simpering humans?”

“ Aren’t you?”

“ No,” Kasey snarls as she swings again; Bo jumps out of the way. “And I’m not afraid of you either!”

“ Then prove it,” Bo challenges, backstepping beyond Kasey’s reach. “Put down your weapons, and show them that they don’t own you. That you’re not here for their entertainment. Killing me won’t bring your sisters back.”

It’s the first time she’s seen Kasey hesitate. The reminder of her loss seems to have paralyzed her, at least temporarily; she stares at Bo with wide eyes, face twisted with grief and rage.

Bo’s heart seizes in her chest as she awaits Kasey’s next move. Did it work? Will she manage to escape this nightmare after all? 

 

Then the nightmare takes a turn for the worse. Before Kasey can find her voice, several others fill the silence—growling, snarling, inhuman voices. Bo and Kasey share an apprehensive look; they both recognize the sounds echoing all around them, herding them into the clearing. This time, it’s a safe bet the mutts aren’t here for any humans.

“ The Cornucopia,” is all Kasey says before she breaks into a run.

Bo follows, sprinting as fast as her legs will carry her. They’re about evenly paced; at least, that’s what Bo thinks until she looks over and doesn’t see Kasey next to her anymore.

A piercing scream alerts Bo to Kasey’s current location—a few meters back, where she must have stumbled or tripped. One of the mutts has caught up to her, latched onto her leg with powerful jaws. Bo barrels back toward them, using her momentum to deliver a sharp kick to the creature’s soft belly.

It whimpers, its jaws dropping open far enough for Kasey’s leg to slip free. There’s no time for Bo to think about what she’s doing—only to do it. She loops an arm under Kasey’s shoulders, half-dragging her limping form.

“ Not inside,” Kasey says as they get close to the Cornucopia. “No way to keep them out. We’ll have to climb.”

They make their way along the outside wall, mutts snapping at their heels. Bo lands another kick to one’s head, while Kasey swipes at another with her sword. Searing agony shoots up Bo’s arm as she raises it just in time to stop a lunge for her neck; the creature’s jaws close around her forearm instead, digging deep gashes in her flesh as she tries to shake it off. Kasey reaches over and jams her blade into its throat, just under its chin. It goes slack almost instantly, slumping to the ground in a heap as they continue on their way.

Bo props Kasey up against the wall and scrambles up as quickly as she can manage. Her left arm is throbbing, blood dripping down and slicking the wall beneath. The midday sun has heated the metal to an almost painful temperature, biting at her palms, but she doesn’t have a choice; it’s climb or die.

When she reaches a stable position, Bo reaches back for Kasey’s hand. “Come on!”

Kasey doesn’t hesitate for a second, reaching up to grab Bo’s hand and push herself up as best she can with one foot. She quickly finds out she can’t climb with the sword in her hand, and hesitates before tossing the weapon to the ground. 

Soon they both collapse on the roof of the Cornucopia, momentarily safe from the creatures jumping and snapping at them from the ground. Good thing the Capitol hasn’t thought of breeding some kind of high-jump gene into them.

Well, yet at least; they probably will now. 

Once she’s caught her breath, Bo does a quick assessment of the situation and thinks longingly of the pack full of first-aid supplies she left behind. She didn’t want to give Kasey any reason to think she had a weapon, but some bandages would  _ really _ be useful right now—for both of them.

Well if nothing else, she needs to stop the bleeding. For lack of a better option, Bo strips off her shirt and gathers it in her fists. It’s a durable material, but the seams come apart without too much effort; she wraps one half around her forearm, tying it securely before half-crawling toward Kasey with the other.

Cautiously watching Bo’s approach, Kasey curls her hand around the knife holstered at her hip. “Why would you help me?”

“ I told you, I don’t want to fight,” Bo says, holding up the makeshift bandage. “But you should probably stop that bleeding if you want to keep your leg.”

After a long, tense moment, Kasey nods warily. “So what now?” she asks, as Bo begins to pull shredded fabric away from her wound.

“ Now we wait, I guess,” Bo says with a shrug, wrapping the other half of her shirt around Kasey’s mangled calf. The bite was deep; she’s not sure bandaging it will even make a difference, but she can’t let herself think that way. “Ball’s in their court.”

The silence that follows seems unbearably long; nothing but the slavering of the mutts and the shallow, labored breathing of the two surviving tributes. As the moments tick by, Bo dares to hope that her plan has worked. The Gamemakers haven’t done anything new to force a fight—but they also haven’t made any announcements, so what are they waiting for?

A question whose answer becomes clear when Bo’s hand starts moving without her input. At first it’s just unsettling—then she sees where her hand is heading. 

“ What are you doing?” Kasey snaps, but not in time to keep Bo from snatching the knife from her hip.

Bo’s eyes widen in horror. “No, I don’t—I’m not—”

“ I should have known you were full of shit,” Kasey snarls, backing away from Bo and fumbling on her person for another weapon.

“ No!” Bo protests more fiercely, focusing all of her energy on fighting the foreign power invading her body. “No I’m not—I won’t—”

Her muscles are screaming at her to attack, but she manages to fight it just enough to hold the knife in place in the air; she can feel it pulling forward, but she stubbornly holds it back.

Then trumpets. A now-gratingly familiar voice on the intercom. “Won’t be long now, loyal viewers!” Vex declares, his voice dripping with feigned anticipation. “Will the succubus taste first blood, or will her opponent throw her to the mutts?”

If there’s one thing Bo can say for Vex, it’s that he’s good at what he does. All over Panem viewers will be on the edge of their seats, holding their breath to see how the games turn out. Few of them will catch the thinly veiled ultimatum in his words: one of them  _ will _ kill the other.

More disturbingly, something in his voice makes Bo think he knows  exactly how she’s being controlled. “Bastard,” she curses through clenched teeth, fighting hard to regain control of her hand. “What are you doing to me?”

“ Do it.”

Bo looks up sharply, surprised by the resolve in Kasey’s voice. “What?”

Kasey sighs, with no small amount of dissatisfaction. “There’s no way I can beat you right now.” She gestures to her leg, her lack of weapon. Something glints in her eyes, like guilt or acceptance or grief. “And you’re right; I can’t bring my sisters back. If this is the only revenge I can get on those Capitol bastards, then I’ll take it.”

Horror rises like bile in the back of Bo’s throat. “No,” she says vehemently, redoubling her efforts to resist. “I— _won’t_ —be—a killer!” she grunts out, throwing the knife over the side of the roof in one burst of motion. The movement takes almost all of her energy; she slumps to the side, only just managing to keep from collapsing entirely. “Your move!” she shouts at the sky.

Bo doesn’t notice until it’s too late—until Kasey has pulled herself almost right to the edge of the roof.

“ Kasey, no—” Bo reaches for Kasey, then freezes when Kasey moves closer to the edge.

“ I have to,” Kasey snaps. “This isn’t about giving up anymore. It’s about fighting back.”

With the determined set of her mouth, the iron glint in her eyes, Bo can believe it. “But you can’t do that if you’re dead!” she pleads.

Kasey smirks. “That might be the only way I  _ can _ fight them.” She tosses her legs over the edge of the roof, flinching when the mutts fall just short of snapping at her feet. “But you’ve obviously gotten to them. Maybe you can make a difference.”

Bo frowns, tries to think of another argument, but it happens too fast; one moment Kasey is there, the next she’s dropping to the ground. Slamming her eyes shut, Bo tries to block out the sounds of the woman being devoured. She’s trapped halfway between numb and raw, like everything hurts too much for her to be able to survive feeling it. 

“ Ladies and gentlemen, the victor of the seventy-fourth annual Hunger Games—Bo Dennis, from District Twelve!”

She hears Vex’s voice as if from a distance, muffled and distorted. She can’t make out his words, but it doesn’t matter—she knows what they mean.

It’s over. 


	23. Chapter 23

What follows is like a dream, hazy and somehow more and less than real all at once. When the hovercraft comes down, it completely bypasses what’s left of Kasey’s body and lowers a ladder that Bo recognizes from when she arrived at the arena. This time she’s grateful for the electric current that freezes her to the rungs; she doesn't think she could find the energy or motivation to hold on without the help.

She’s probably right. Once the current releases her, Bo collapses to the floor, still reeling. Hands close around her arms, her legs. She’s lifted from the floor of the hovercraft, set onto a gurney; her clothes are cut from her as she’s examined thoroughly by what she distantly hopes are doctors. A needle pricks at her neck, and her vision swims as she feels the throbbing in her arm drift further away.

When she wakes, Bo can’t move. For a few terrifying instants, she’s convinced she’s back in the arena, on top of the Cornucopia—that whatever that unfamiliar power was, it still has a hold on her. As she blinks her eyes open, she starts to realize that it’s not a power at all; her wrists and ankles are bound to the corners of a hospital bed, several tubes leading from her right arm through a slot in the wall. She’s been tucked in nice and cozy, her injuries almost completely healed, but there’s no mistaking that she’s a prisoner.

While she’s processing all of this, Bo starts to hear muffled voices outside her tiny room. If she closes her eyes, she can just manage to make out the words being said.

“Dr. Lewis, you can’t go in there.”

“Dr. Torres, remind me. Who was it that got you this position?”

“Y-you, ma’am. But—”

“But nothing. That is  _ my _ tribute in there, and I am not leaving until I see with my own eyes that she’s all right.”

“But the President—”

“Tell Isaac he can take it up with me if he doesn’t like it.” 

Bo’s stomach flutters violently as a previously invisible door opens in the wall. Lauren looks harried, on edge, but her eyes soften with relief as they land on Bo’s hospital bed.

“It’s good to see you.” Lauren’s voice is stilted, awkward, but there’s nothing insincere about it—at least, not as far as Bo can tell.

She wants to agree, to say it’s good to see Lauren too, but she’s not sure it would be true; she doesn’t know  _ how _ she feels. Lauren referred to the president by his first name; could someone that close to the people in charge really have any kind of sympathy for the Fae?

“I hope so,” Bo finally jokes, with a weak smile. “Since you went to so much trouble.”

“Oh, that—that was—” Lauren stammers. She’s nervous; is it because she’s putting on an act, or because she’s genuinely flustered?

“I heard,” Bo interjects with a smile. “So I’m  _ your _ tribute, huh?” Until she knows more, going back to the way things were before the games is probably the safest bet. Besides, flirting is at least something she knows how to do; it feels good to be confident about  _ something _ .

Lauren blushes, looks down at her fluttering hands. “I-I only meant you’re—you know, from my district. That I’ve been assigned to. Not that—”

“Relax, Doctor Lewis,” Bo teases. “I think we’re past awkward stammering, don’t you?” She nods toward her restraints, fights to keep the bitterness from her voice. “I mean, I usually leave bondage for at  _ least _ the third date.”

The expression on Lauren’s face sobers instantly, turns apologetic. “I’m…sorry about that. Isaac—President Taft is just being careful. I’ll talk to him—”

“Sounds like you’re pretty friendly with  _ Isaac _ ,” Bo interrupts. Controlling her temper has never been a strong suit, especially when she’s this emotionally raw.

“I…I’ve worked with him for a long time,” Lauren offers obliquely. She looks at Bo with pleading eyes, like she’d like to say more but doesn’t have the nerve. “I’ll convince him you’re not a threat.”

Bo raises an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

Lauren’s eyes go wide with fear. “Bo, you—you can’t say things like that,” she warns in a hushed tone. 

“Why not?” Bo challenges. “They already tried to kill me. Didn’t work.”

“You think they can’t still do it?” Lauren shoots back, in that same urgent tone. “Bo, the only reason they haven’t is—” She pauses, takes a breath like she’s biting back words. “—is because they still have hope of getting a good show out of you,” she finishes, not quite convincingly. What was she going to say? “If you don’t give them what they want, you’re of no use to them.”

This is pointless. Bo was stupid to think she could get any sort of real answer when Lauren is clearly under the Capitol’s control, whether her sympathy is sincere or not. “So what do they want?” Bo asks, resigned.

“I…I don’t know yet,” Lauren admits. “I’m trying to find out, I just—I don’t have the resources I used to.” She takes a deep breath, letting it out in a shaky, frustrated huff. “Look, just—be careful, Bo,” she pleads earnestly. “Keep your head down. The more you cooperate, the sooner you can go home.”

 _ Home _ . The word stops Bo’s racing mind in its tracks. She’s going  home— to Trick, to her little room in the basement of the Dal Riata. The thought brings the expected comfort, but it’s laced with something sour and apprehensive; will it still feel like home after what she’s seen?

***

Whether it’s Lauren’s doing or not, Bo wakes up the next morning curled in an unrestrained ball on her bed. Her arm is free of tubes and good as new; there’s no sign of the deep gashes from the mutt’s teeth.

There’s an outfit laid out at the foot of her bed, crisp and neatly folded. As her eyes land on it, Bo’s stomach lurches; it’s the same outfit she wore into the arena, or a brand-new carbon copy of it. The message is clear: the games aren’t over yet. Memories flash rapidly behind her eyes: an axe flying at her face, Choga’s limp body being slammed against the Cornucopia, Kaz lying twisted and broken as he cried for his son. She digs her palms into her eye sockets in an attempt to block them out, but they keep coming; Nora’s decomposing body, the snarling of the mutts, the bittersweet taste of Tamsin’s chi as she lay dying in Bo’s arms.

The thought of Tamsin’s fate brings a sharp stab of pain to Bo’s chest, but it’s tempered by the memory of the superior, condescending expression Tamsin wore so well; no doubt she’d be wearing it now, berating Bo for sitting around and moping when there’s shit to do.

Chuckling sadly to herself, Bo pulls on the clothes with renewed determination. The memories are still lingering just out of reach, but she’s managed to push them down into her subconscious. If Lauren can be trusted at all, the most dangerous part of the games is about to begin; if Bo wants to make it home, she has to survive this first.

The door slides open for her a few seconds after she steps in front of it, revealing a wide, deserted hallway. Looking around she can’t see any other doors, but they must be there somewhere; which way is she supposed to go?

Behind her, a large door slides open at the end of the hall. Bo turns at the sound, flooding with relief as her eyes land on Dyson, Kenzi, and Lauren waiting in a large chamber. She walks slowly toward them, her pace picking up as Kenzi rushes forward, followed closely by Dyson.

Then Kenzi is wrapped around Bo, arms holding tight at her waist as her cheek presses into Bo’s shoulder. “You rocked it, sistah,” she murmurs, her voice wavering. Tears sting at Bo’s eyes as she holds Kenzi tighter.

Dyson loops an arm around the back of Bo’s shoulders, tugging her into his side so he can press his lips to her temple. “I’m so glad you’re safe,” he murmurs against her skin, his voice rough and thick. “I was so worried.”

Though she knows he means it well, the reminder of his doubt stings. “Well, I’m tougher than I look,” Bo cracks, forcing a smile. His arm around her shoulder makes her feel more trapped than safe.

“It’s good to see you,” Lauren says with a polite smile, then visibly cringes at herself; it’s the exact same way she greeted Bo yesterday.

“You too,” Bo replies, taking the opportunity to pull away from the impromptu group hug. She looks from Lauren to Dyson, to Kenzi—the only one she’s not conflicted about. “All of you.”

Kenzi dabs at the corners of her eyes as she steps back, clears her throat. “Now that we’ve had our little family reunion,” she begins, slowly regaining her composure. She reaches for Bo, one hand at the small of her back and the other in the crook of her elbow. “I have to get this one up to her rooms to prep for the big show.”

She doesn’t hesitate to sweep Bo off toward the elevator, leaving Dyson and Lauren no opportunity to protest. Once they’re inside, Bo sags against the wall and flashes her a grateful smile. “Thanks.”

“No worries, Bobalicious.” Kenzi shrugs. “It’s gotta be super awkward. I mean, last week you were all trying to decide which one you wanted to bone, and now they’ve both seen you…well, in action. With someone else. And I’m gonna stop talking now.” 

Bo can’t help but chuckle, though Kenzi’s words do give her pause. “They showed the whole thing, didn’t they?” she groans. The realization sits uneasily in her stomach. Of  _ course _ they would have had cameras everywhere; it just never seemed worth thinking about when she was fighting for her life. And that night—only two nights ago, unless Bo was out for longer than she’s aware of—whatever that night was, it felt far too private to share with all of Panem.

Kenzi offers an apologetic shrug. “Well, you kinda made it easy for them. There wasn’t even any nudity to censor.”

“Perv.” Bo knocks Kenzi’s shoulder as the elevator nears the top floor. “I thought you were ‘strictly into dudes’?”

“Excuse  _ moi _ .” Kenzi’s palms fly up in defense. “Looking and touching are two very different things, and you can _ not _ blame a girl for looking. That shit was _in_ _ tense _ .” She turns one hand to fan herself dramatically with it, but it falls to her chest as her smile fades, eyes glittering with moisture. “Plus, you know, it looked like you might die. It—felt kind of wrong to look away.”

“Hey,” Bo murmurs, pulling Kenzi into a hug. “I’m okay. I’m alive, and I don’t plan on dying anytime soon.” She pulls back to meet Kenzi’s red-rimmed gaze. “You got that?”

Kenzi grins, reaching up to wipe at her eyes. “Of course not,” she sniffs as the elevator door slides open with a pleasant chime. “If you died before I got to show off the a _mazing_ dress I designed for you, I’d have to drag you back just so I could kick your ass.”

“I better stay alive then,” Bo replies, smiling as she follows Kenzi into the District Twelve rooms. “I wouldn’t stand a chance.”

Glancing back over her shoulder, Kenzi smirks. “Damn right you wouldn’t.”


	24. Chapter 24

“ Kenz, it’s gorgeous,” Bo gushes, admiring the dress in her mirror. Long, sheer sleeves lead up to a dark blue bodice that reveals little more than her collarbones; a long skirt in a lighter blue flares out beneath, the front stopping just above her feet while the back extends to brush the floor. Sparkling gems decorate the entire dress in swirling patterns, from the hem of the dress all the way to the edge of each sleeve. She looks like a princess, straight out of the storybooks she used to have as a child.

Kenzi meets Bo’s eyes in the mirror, hands clasped under her chin in anticipation. “It’s more than that,” she says with barely contained excitement. “Look closer.”

When she does, Bo is startled by what she notices: what she thought were clear gems are actually shimmering with color, reflecting light from what looks like millions of different angles. As she watches the colors change, she starts to pick out familiar ones: a bright green the color of Kaz’s beard, a faded black reminiscent of Bruce’s tattoos, the exact icy blue of Tamsin’s eyes. “Kenz…” she murmurs, a lump forming in her throat.

“I figured you’d want them all with you,” Kenzi explains, looking like she wants to say a whole lot more. No doubt the Capitol is listening.

Bo turns and sweeps Kenzi into her arms, holding her close instead. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Kenzi replies, sniffling. She steps back, pressing at the edge of her eye with one hand while the other shoos Bo away. “Now move it, missy! We need to get you backstage.”

***

Backstage turns out to be  under the stage, on the floor that houses the training rooms; a wide metal plate will carry Bo up to the stage when it’s time. She waits anxiously through the booming of the national anthem, through Vex’s self-indulgent humor; finally her prep team is announced, followed by Lauren, Kenzi, and Dyson. 

Then it’s her turn. Her heart jumps into her throat as she steps onto the metal plate.

“And now, the victor of the seventy-fourth annual Hunger Games! From District Twelve, Booooooo Dennis!”

The ceiling above her opens up to reveal blinding lights, the crowd’s roar growing more deafening the higher she rises. Vex steps forward and takes her hand, helping her off of the plate as it clicks into place in the stage floor. He leads her to an ornate chair at center stage, taking a more modest seat across from her while she gets settled.

Vex makes a few more jokes, but the thudding in Bo's chest drowns out what he's saying until everything goes quiet and she realizes he must have asked her a question. “Sorry, what did you say?” she asks, as politely as she can manage.

“I think someone’s a bit overwhelmed,” Vex tells the audience, holding his hand to his mouth as if sharing an exciting secret. He turns back to Bo, a perfect expression of false sympathy on his face. “You doing all right over there, love?”

Bo nods, forcing a smile to her lips. “Yeah! I’m fine, just…like you said, overwhelmed.”

“Of course you are,” Vex tuts, already turning back to the audience. “Now, are we all ready for the big show?”

The crowd erupts in cheers, then goes silent as the lights dim and the Capitol seal appears on large viewing screens all over the square. The image fades into the beginning of the highlight reel, and Bo’s stomach twists violently. She watches with sorrow as Kasey and Liam approach the stage in District One, fights back tears when Tamsin and Bruce raise their joined hands triumphantly in Two. By the time they reach her own Reaping, Bo has already lost the battle and instead is stubbornly ignoring the tears streaking down her face.

The images race by—the parade, their training scores, the interviews—and before Bo can really prepare herself for it, they’re suddenly in the arena. The timer counts down from sixty, and the camera flashes between shots of each of the tributes on their podium. It zooms in on Bo as the timer clicks to zero, and as she watches herself frantically flee the battlefield, Bo is torn between embarrassment at how completely inept she looks and amazement that she somehow managed to survive.

But survive she does. Her escape into the trees is well documented, interspersed with shots of other tributes dying: the shark-man from Four slumping to the ground after Gid’s fatal blow; Kasey slitting the throat of the woman from Nine. The crowd gasps when they see Marija’s power in action, as the man from Three rots away before their eyes. The porcupine man from Eight displays his ferocity right away, stabbing at the woman from Ten with his quills as they both make a break for a nearby bow. She collapses within seconds; his quills must have provided the poison for his arrows.

Once the bloodbath is over, the reel cuts back to the Cornucopia, launching into a time-lapse montage of the Careers collecting all the gear from the battlefield. Night falls, and the scene shifts to Tamsin and Bruce sneaking off during their watch while the others sleep. There’s a series of quick shots of the other surviving tributes—Ylva, curled up high in a tree with rope anchoring her to its trunk; Marija, stretching out in a bed of soft clover with an overgrown tangle of plants hiding her from view; Asanka, huddled in the cave Bo and Tamsin later found.

Finally the focus shifts back to Bo in her makeshift shelter, sleeping fitfully; a quick time-lapse later, and Wapun is coming down with her axe. While Bo makes her escape on screen, the camera stays with the fight she left behind; the axe makes a sickening thunk as it buries itself in the tiny man’s torso. Wapun slumps down beside him, quickly succumbing to the powerful poison on the arrow jammed into her side.

Ylva sets traps, while the Careers argue over who’s going after Tamsin and Bruce. The camera shows a short clip of Marija trudging through the woods before shifting back to Bo, just as she’s coming upon Kaz at the pond. It’s surprising how much of their brief friendship the Gamemakers decided to show—somehow, Bo didn’t expect them to approve—but she can’t help noticing that they’re placing a heavy focus on how much he helped her.

The fight against Kasey, Logan, and Gid plays out. Bo watches herself crying over Kaz’s broken body, hears the collective sigh of the audience. She frowns as the scene cuts right after Tamsin’s admonition about friendship, picking up as Bruce is dragging her away from the battle site. Slowly she starts to understand; they’re trying to make her look weak and nonthreatening, like it’s blind luck that she’s alive and not any real merit on her own part.

The trend persists as the video continues. The Bo in the highlight reel never says a word against the Capitol or the games. She makes friends with everyone she can, can’t even bear to see a hardened  criminal be killed if there’s something she can do to stop it—but of course they can’t let her set the criminals free, because that wouldn’t be  _justice_. The camera tastefully pans away before the prisoners are slaughtered, so that the audience isn't forced to witness what Bo and the other tributes had to. 

This Bo doesn’t find a note in Tamsin’s pocket; she sits and watches Tamsin sleep, and then it’s day and she’s standing by the stream as Kasey runs up in Ylva’s skin. Whatever the deal with the notes is, clearly the Capitol does not want people to know about it.

Then Tamsin is dying on screen, and Bo swallows against another overwhelming flood of tears. Vex slipped her a tissue box a while ago, grinning almost cruelly at her reaction; she’s thankful for it now, because Kenzi’s going to kick her ass for the damage she’s already managed to do to her makeup.

Kasey’s death comes at last, noticeably absent any mention of making a difference. Then the camera is fading to black on Bo’s lone figure, huddled on the roof of the Cornucopia. The anthem plays as the lights come up again, and Vex gestures for Bo to stand up as President Taft himself approaches.

His smile is as cold as the look in his eyes. He picks up the victor’s crown, nods to the audience, then turns to place it on Bo’s head—all with that same cold, vicious smile.

After the bowing and cheering that follows, Bo is whisked off to the Victory Banquet. A makeup artist meets her en route, touching up the smudges her tears have caused; she has to look pretty for all the sponsors and Capitol officials that are waiting to get a moment with her.

The evening passes in a blur. Bo loses count of how many hands she shakes, how many pictures she smiles blankly for. None of them show any interest in Bo beyond the mere fact that she won, except in a couple of cases marveling at the novelty of a gentle fae. The whole thing makes her sick; twenty-three other Fae died for  _ this_?

It’s almost sunrise when she staggers back to the twelfth floor rooms. The only thing on her mind is sleep, but Dyson pulls her into a hug before she can step off of the elevator.

“Dyson, what—” Bo protests, stiffening at the sudden confinement.

“You’re in trouble, Bo,” Dyson hisses, an inch away from her ear. 

The chilling gravity of his tone is enough to render Bo paralyzed, though she’s already figured out  _ that _much. “What kind of trouble?”

Dyson shakes his head. “Not here. Meet me on the roof in ten minutes.”

He pulls away, smiling as though he just hadn’t been able to resist hugging her. Without another word of explanation, he steps off of the elevator and leaves Bo to wonder what the hell is going on.

***

He meets her at the entrance to the garden and waves her inside. “We should be able to talk here,” he says in a hushed tone nonetheless, gesturing toward the wind chimes hanging all around them. The sound should help disguise the sound of their voices. 

Bo stands a few feet away from Dyson, arms crossed over her chest. “Okay, mind telling me what’s going on?”

Dyson sighs, rubs his hand through his beard. “I don’t know how Lauren convinced Taft to let you go, but he’s not happy about doing it,” he warns grimly.

“Let me go?” Bo furrows her brow. “What are you talking about?”

He meets her eyes, and she’s shaken by the genuine fear in his expression. “He had a story all set up, Bo.” His hands curl into fists at his sides. “How your injury was worse than it looked, and you would have to be awarded the victor’s crown posthumously.”

“What?” Bo gasps, barely more than a breath. “How do you know?”

“Wolves have keen hearing, remember?” Dyson says grimly, taking a step closer. “People talk. All I know is, he was set to tell Panem you were dead. He’s been after a succubus for his  _ research _ for decades, and you pissed him off by making it through the games without a single kill.”

A thousand or more questions fight for Bo’s voice, but one is most urgent of all. “So what—what do I do? What  _ can _ I do?”

“Be nice,” is Dyson’s reply. When Bo starts to scoff, he drops his hands to her shoulders and catches her gaze. “I mean it, Bo. You saw how they’re trying to paint you tonight, in that highlight reel. They want  _nice_ — so give it to them when they interview you tomorrow.” His right hand slides up to cup her face, thumb brushing affectionately over her jaw. “Give them sweet, humble, maybe even a little dumb. Convince Panem that you’re just too good of a Fae to take a life, even if it meant saving your own.”

Bo frowns. That’s the truth—most of it, anyway. “As opposed to what?”

“As opposed to the symbol of a budding revolution,” Dyson says grimly.

For the first time, Bo finds herself regretting the things she said about the Capitol, about the games—not because they’re not true, but because she’s suddenly opening her eyes to the possible consequences of having said them. “I didn’t even know what I was  _ doing_!” she insists, panic rising in her throat.

“I know that,” Dyson assures, dropping his left hand to tangle with her right. “Convince _them_. They’ve all seen your actions, Bo. You need to give them your reasons—and make sure they’re ones the Capitol will like.”


	25. Chapter 25

Dyson’s warning stays with Bo through a morning of fitful sleep. She eats a small, quick breakfast before Kenzi’s team descends, transforming her for the final interview.

Eventually Kenzi brushes them aside and dresses Bo in a simple white sundress, accented by pale blue shoes. “If you’re trying to convince them I’m a virgin, I think you’re a little late,” Bo cracks.

Kenzi just shushes her, continuing to make last-minute adjustments until Lauren comes to fetch Bo for the interview.

Lauren is silent and tense as she walks Bo down the hall to the sitting room, leaving her off with a worried look and a barely-uttered “Be careful.”

Apprehension twists in her gut, and it only gets worse when Vex ushers her into the room where the interview will take place. There’s no live audience, only cameramen and a pair of armed Peacekeepers at the door, but after talking to Dyson last night she feels more exposed than ever.

“Welcome, welcome,” Vex gushes, pressing his hand against the small of her back as he leads her to her seat. He gives the Peacekeepers a wary look before turning his trademark insincere smile on her. “How are we doing today?”

“Great,” Bo replies, just as insincere. “Looking forward to the interview.” More like looking forward to getting it over with—but she has a feeling she’ll be twisting a lot of little details in the very near future.

“Wonderful.” Vex claps his hands together, turning to watch as Dyson slips into the room. “If everyone’s here then, why don’t we start?”

Someone counts down, then they’re being broadcast for all of Panem to see. Vex makes his introduction, then turns to Bo with legs crossed. “So,” he begins, linking his fingers over his knee. “The Gentle Fae. How does it feel to be the first victor in Panem history not to make a single kill?”

Bo is more startled by the question than she should be. “I…I don’t know,” she says with a weak shrug. “I can’t really imagine what it would feel like to kill someone.”

“Of course you can’t.” Vex shakes his head and tuts. “Well tell us this, then: when that gong sounded, and the games began, what was going through your mind?”

“Panic,” Bo replies, recalling the feeling all too well. “I knew I had to get out of there, but it seemed like everywhere I looked people were dying.” 

“How terrifying for you,” Vex says, feigning sympathy.

It continues like that for a while; Vex walks her through the games almost step by step, making sure to pay special attention to the moments that caused the most tears last night. It gets almost predictable, and Bo finds herself relaxing the longer the interview goes on.

That is, until they reach the subject of the last night of the games. “Now that was certainly a  _ unique _ healing experience,” Vex leers, raking his eyes along the overly modest neckline of her dress. “But tell us: was that truly all it was? Because let me tell you, I think all our hearts were melting at that dreamy look on your face while you watched her sleep.”

Bo falters, having difficulty finding the words. “Tamsin was…” she swallows, looks down at her lap. “I didn’t expect to care about her, but I did. I hoped we could be—friends.”

Before they can dwell too long on why that never could have happened, Vex hastens the conversation to the subject of the final battle.

“That was the moment right there,” Vex says. “When that knife flew from your hand over the side of the roof, and Kasey looked up at you—and she knew that even though you wouldn’t hurt her, she’d still lost.”

“Right.” Bo manages a weak nod, her hands balling into fists. The Capitol made it look like Kasey flung herself over the edge in a frantic moment of defeat, rather than the halfway noble sacrifice her death actually was. The thought grinds on her last nerve, but Dyson’s words are fresh in her mind: be  nice .

“And now here you are, a shining example to all of Panem.” Vex beams at the camera and launches into his sign-off spiel. Behind him, Dyson gives her a grim smile and a thumbs-up.

***

Bo has just enough time to run back to her room to grab her meager belongings, and then she’s whisked downstairs and into a car with blackened windows. The train is waiting for them at the station, but Bo can’t leave without saying goodbye to Kenzi.

“I’m gonna miss you,” she murmurs into Kenzi’s hair.

“Psh,” Kenzi scoffs, holding tight to her back. “You’ll see me in a few months. Who else could make you look absolutely fabulous for your Victory Tour?”

“You have a point,” Bo admits with a watery laugh.

“Besides,” Kenzi continues, rolling her eyes, “you’ll be so busy with your newfound life of luxury that you won’t even think about me.”

“That could never happen.” Bo pulls away, noticing Dyson’s urgent glare; next to him, Lauren is arguing with someone who might be the train’s conductor. “Take care of yourself, Kenz.”

“You too, BoBo,” Kenzi says, sniffling. “I’ll miss you too. I’ll see you soon!”

As Dyson leads her toward the train, away from Kenzi, it feels like she’s leaving behind a sister. 

***

The second train ride is much quieter than the first; Bo stays mostly to her own quarters, emerging only when she’s confident she can make the trip to the dining car and back more or less unnoticed. The guards on the train don’t bother Bo much, but she’d rather avoid more awkward, stilted conversations with Lauren that are never quite what they seem.

And Dyson…she still can’t figure out how she feels about him now, after the games. After his lack of faith nearly sent her into the games starving and weak—and, you know, her far too public sex with someone that's not him. She didn't know it was possible to feel this awkward and pissed off at the same time. So, avoidance all around. It’s gotta be a sound strategy. 

Except sometimes what you’re avoiding finds you. Bo holds back a groan as Dyson slips into her room. What's the point of knocking if you're not going to wait for an answer?

“We’ll be in District Twelve in a couple of hours,” he says, stepping toward where she sits on the edge of the bed. Thought you’d want to know.” 

“Thanks.” Bo smiles, and it’s almost sincere. “It’ll be good to see Trick again, and the Dal.”

“It’ll be just like old times.” Dyson smirks. “Only I won’t have to sneak you into the Victors’ Village anymore.” When she doesn’t laugh, he steps forward, kneeling on the floor in front of her. He brushes his thumb across her cheek. “Hey. You just need to spend some time being home again, Bo. I promise it’ll be easier once everything gets back to normal.”

“Right.” She’s too tired, too overwhelmed to tell him all the reasons he’s wrong. “Normal.”

Bo hasn’t felt normal in a long time—not since the teenage lust in Kyle’s eyes turned to horror and disgust, and she was torn from the only life she’d ever known. She certainly doesn’t expect to start now, when every last comfort and safe place she knows has been twisted, corrupted by the Capitol’s influence. What does normal even  _mean_ anymore?

She’s going home a victor, but Bo is deadly certain that she's only begun to lose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for taking this journey with me. I promise there is still a _lot_ to come, but it'll take me a few months (at least) to get the second book anywhere near ready. This is only the beginning of what promises to be an epic journey, and while it may not seem like it right now, Tamsin is going to be a _huge_ part of that. 
> 
> *smishes everyone*


End file.
